Maid to Love You
by TinkerbellReturns
Summary: AU: One of them got married and lived in Manhattan. The other decided to leave a lonely life in Phoenix behind and start afresh somewhere else. One of them is rich, the other is dirt-poor. Will love find them regardless of the circumstances? Takes place 11/12 years ago. Warning: contains some serious smut from Chapter 4 on! In response to SwanFire AU Fridays prompt Rich/Poor.
1. Chapter 1: The Job Interview

**Chapter 1. The job interview**

Neal Cassidy looked at his watch and tapped his fingers on the table. He looked around the small café and took a long, calming breath before smoothing his T-shirt for the millionth time that morning, then proceeded to check his jeans and boots. Not the usual interview attire... at least not the one he was used to.

'_Times have changed,'_ he reminded himself in silence. '_The only thing that doesn't seem to change… is your bad luck.'_

He scoffed, and at that very same moment, a blond girl in a ponytail and glasses, wearing a flower-patterned dress and a jean jacket, entered the café. She took a look around the place with a frown, but there was not much to see apart from Neal, the only customer sipping a cup of coffee in the tiny little café. Neal saw her eyes fall on him for a second, and then she turned on her heels and made to leave.

"Excuse me," he said, standing up before the girl had the chance to walk away. There was absolutely no way he would risk missing the only interview he had managed to schedule through that job agency! "I'm sorry, but are you Emma Swan?"

She looked at him, still frowning from behind her glasses.

"Yes," she replied, tilting her head slightly. "I'm sorry, but you are…"

"Neal Cassidy," he replied with a friendly smile as he outstretched his hand. "We have an appointment at 10:30."

"On, I'm sorry," she said, shaking his hand but looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "There must have been some sort of mistake."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't have an appointment with any _Neal _Cassidy," she answered, opening the folder she was carrying. "I'm supposed to meet a _Nelly_ Cassidy at 10:30."

'_What the?'_ Neal thought, trying not to let his surprise show.

"Are you… are you sure?" he asked, blinking.

"Yes," Emma replied, shrugging. "I'm sorry."

"Do you mind if I…" he muttered, pointing at the folder.

"Go ahead."

He picked up the piece of paper with the agency logo to check the contact information on it.

"Ah…" he whispered. "See, that is the problem… they spelled my name wrong."

Of course they did. If his job interview didn't start with something weird, like, _him having a girl's name on his interviewer's file_, then it just wouldn't be him.

"But the rest of the information is correct," he said, as his eyes ran over the other lines, "…including the gender."

Emma took the paper back from his hands and her eyes went wide.

"You're… _a man?_" she muttered, still looking at his file.

"Busted," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and smiling, trying to dissipate that awkward moment of awkwardness.

"Oh, I'm so sorry…" she whispered in response. "I just wasn't expecting it, I mean, are you sure? Are we really talking about the same job opening?" she asked, just to make sure they were on the same page after the little mishap with the man's name. "Because I am looking for a _maid._"

Neal swallowed, realizing that job interview was likely to be a fiasco.

"Uh, yeah," he said, smiling his most charming smile. "Housekeeper," he made sure to point out the correct term in his file. "It's me, I… I applied for that job, yes."

He saw her raise her eyebrows quickly, only to smile afterwards.

"Well, in that case…" she said, pulling a chair to sit at his table. "Then I think we should get started."

Neal resumed to his seat, and his fingers dangled nervously around his cup of coffee. He had expected Emma Swan to be somewhat older. _Much_ older. He stole a glance towards her as she looked at his file. How old was she anyway? Seventeen, eighteen?

_That was not going to work._

"Ok… _Neal_," she started, smiling again. "So, I take it you can cook, clean, iron…"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, trying to sound as confident as possible.

"Ok. Uh… You're divorced?"

He blinked and bit his lip. Of all the questions, she had to poke at that specific open wound.

"Yes," he replied, after swallowing the lump in his throat.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, fumbling with the papers. "I shouldn't even be asking. I've never interviewed anyone before."

He nodded, trying to smile again to make her feel slightly better about her faux pas.

"So…" she continued, after clearing her throat. "Tell me about your last job."

He let out a sigh, and a rather bitter sneer.

"Tell you what," he said, trying to hide his discomfort as he cast a flirtatious look towards his interviewer. "Let me buy you a drink, and I'll tell you."

Emma, however, was less than amused at his remark.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked quietly, after sliding her glasses further up her nose.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, quickly lowering his eyes to his cup of coffee, and he knew he was blushing. What an idiotic thing to say! That was a job interview, for Heaven's sake! "I'm so sorry, I… I tend to crack jokes when I get nervous."

She looked at him with the same unimpressed look as before.

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter," she said, getting the papers together and putting them back into the folder.

"No, please, Emma," he muttered, and her eyes shot back to him. "I mean… Ms. Swan. I'm… I'm sorry."

She closed the folder and tapped her fingers over it, raising an eyebrow.

"My last job was at a law firm," he answered, looking at his own hands as he did so. "I am a… well, I worked as a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" she repeated, barely bothering to hide her surprise. "Why in-"

"I went through a very complicated divorce, and lost everything I had to my ex-wife," he whispered, still avoiding her eyes. "Including my suits. All of them. So, I figured," he finally raised his eyes to hers, with his carelessly charming façade ready to go. "Maybe it's time to find a job where wearing jeans and sweatpants won't be a problem!"

By that time, Emma Swan looked slightly more sympathetic.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said.

Neal nodded in response. He was sorry, too. Mostly, he was sorry for having gotten married, in the first place.

"But, uh, sorry to be inconvenient, but you are… or _were_ a lawyer, right? How did you get ripped off?"

He had to concede it was a fair question, although it was one he really wouldn't like to answer. But she did look genuinely interested, so… _whatever._

"Divorce litigation, Ms. Swan, as well as pretty much every kind of litigation…" he said, and his fingers danced around the cup of coffee as he spoke, "is a lot like an arena full of hungry lions. And, as a lawyer, sometimes you have to choose between what will make you win, and what is right."

He took a sip of his coffee, studying her face.

"That explains why I am unemployed, too," he muttered.

"So you're saying you're a man of principles?" she asked, tilting her head with a friendly smile.

"I try my best to be," Neal responded, smiling as well. _What a strange thing._ He had just met Emma Swan, and yet he was now realizing that talking to her about his biggest failures in life was, in a way, rather comforting: she made him feel strangely in peace with himself. "But I must say I'm starting to miss hot meals," he completed. "A life of honesty sometimes doesn't exactly grant you many benefits."

"Oh, it does," she said. "Maybe not material ones… but I suppose that being able to sleep well at night, knowing you did the right thing… I guess that is a big benefit."

He forced himself not to sneer. If there was one thing he had no idea what it felt like, it was "sleeping well at night". But he chose to remain silent not to let his bitterness sour the conversation.

"Well," Emma said at last, closing the folder and looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "Your references are great, so is your resume… I won't make any promises, but… what do you say we meet tomorrow morning at my place?"

He smiled. At last, a ray of sunshine amidst the dark clouds above his head!

"I will give you a challenge, and if you pass…" she said, taking off her glasses to clean them with a napkin. "The job is yours."

She had nice eyes. And a nice mouth too. All of a sudden, he found himself wishing the challenge was something rather kinky.

'_Keep it in your pants, will you?'_ said a voice inside his mind, slapping him back to reality.

The two of them stood up and shook hands after she wrote down her address. For now, he should focus on getting that job, and _nothing but that._


	2. Chapter 2: The Challenge

**Chapter 2: The challenge **

Emma Swan lived in a helluva nice place, Neal remarked, after he walked past the main gate of the luxury condo and found her waiting next to the door to her apartment.

"You're early," she said, with a smile.

He smiled back, still wearing his sunglasses as he looked around the place. The truth was that, when you lived in a bug, you could hardly wait until the sun rose. Sleeping in was not a viable option.

"Wow," he whistled, nodding at her with an impressed grin. "You don't get those in Manhattan, I'll tell you this."

"Is that where you used to live?" she asked, welcoming him into her home.

"Yup," he replied, not really willing to go deeper into that topic.

"By the way, I'm sorry, but I totally forgot to ask," she said. "Where exactly are you living here, in Tallahassee?"

Now that was another topic he was not really willing to address.

"Uh… Just around the corner," he said, and it was not necessarily a lie. That was where he had parked his car.

"Really?" she asked, with a frown. She lived in quite a posh neighborhood, and if he really was her neighbor, something was slightly off.

"Temporarily," he added.

"Living with a friend?" she asked, tilting her head.

He smiled, finally taking off his sunglasses to look into her eyes.

"I guess you could say that."

'_Sounds more like a girlfriend to me…'_ Emma thought, as her gaze shifted from his eyes to his chest. She liked his T-shirt. Not too loose, not too tight. Her eyes drifted downward, spent a moment looking at his belt, and then went on to his jeans. Then up again to his chest, to his arms… _He had nice arms._ And hands…

"Please don't be offended by my question…"

_She liked his voice too._

"… but how old are you?" he asked.

'_Old enough,'_ her mind quickly replied.

"Why do you wanna know?" she asked, shaking her head to wake up from her trance. Damn those hormones! Of course he had noticed her staring, and now he had gotten the wrong idea! Now he wanted to know if she was legal, obviously because he now thought she wanted to… _do things_ with him! Which was clearly not the case! She was not thinking about it. Not at all!

"I just find it remarkable that you live here all by yourself. You look rather young."

"Trust me, I'm old enough to live by myself," she replied, with a snicker.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Neal was quick to add. "That is not what I meant. It's just…" he stopped, and pondered for a moment. Maybe it was too soon to ask such personal questions, about family and all. "Oh, never mind."

She felt she was blushing.

"Well, let's go in, shall we?" she said, looking at her own shoes as she opened the door to her apartment and urged him in.

Neal's jaw dropped slightly, and not so much because of how big the place was, nor because of the tasteful furniture and decoration… What had immediately caught his eye was the fact the whole apartment seemed to have been swallowed by a giant wave, than spit back onto the shore in a pile of destruction. There were bags, clothes and papers everywhere he looked at.

"And _that _is your challenge," Emma said, with a feline grin.

Neal turned to look at her with a frown. So much for the kinky, sexy options he had thought of.

"The thing is," she continued, crossing her arms as she walked around him. "I have been very busy at work lately, so my stuff has been piling up, as you can see," she saw him raise an eyebrow as she spoke, and had to bite back a chuckle. "I need someone who can clean up this mess, and also… Somewhere in here, there is a bank statement that I really, really need," she handed him a paper with a short description of the document she was looking for. "If you find it, you will be rewarded _generously…_"

Neal looked up from the paper to her face. He could be wrong - and he generally was, about a lot of things – but he had the clear impression Emma Swan, his potential employer, was casting rather unholy looks towards him, and not for the first time that morning. She was lucky she hadn't yet showed him the guidelines about sexual harassment; if she had, she would be in deep trouble. That is… if Neal himself hadn't been casting his own share of unholy looks towards her as well.

"…with two hundred dollars, cash."

"Oh," he muttered. He had thought of another reward – he really had to get his head out of the gutter! – but Heaven knew how much he could do with some money. And not just _some _money. She was offering him the equivalent of almost one week of work!

"Think you can do it?" she asked, with a defiant smirk.

"Ms. Swan, if I were you," he said, wrinkling his forehead as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I would call the agency to say this job opening has been filled."

"Confidence, _nice._ You sure can talk the talk…" she said, tilting her head. "Now let's see if you walk the walk."

Neal looked away as the girl in front of him said those last words, biting his tongue not to return the taunt. He needed the job. He would deal with his other… _urges_ later.

"I'm heading to work now," she continued, looking thoroughly entertained with herself. "I wrote my phone number in the board near the fridge. I'll be back at the end of the day, so that gives you some eight to nine hours."

He saw her fling a bag over her shoulder, as she picked up the keys to her car from a bowl near the door.

"Use them well."

She smiled, eyeing him for a last time before walking out.

* * *

At the end of the day, Neal let himself fall onto one of the chairs in the solarium, feeling absolutely exhausted, and that was because he hadn't done any laundry, ironing or cooking yet. Whoever said housekeeping was an easy job had no idea whatsoever what they were talking about.

After spending the last seven hours of his day vacuuming, dusting, sorting out papers, folding clothes and putting garbage away, he realized how stupid he had been to think he was remotely qualified for that job. The organizational part of the deal, so far, had worked out fine: the apartment was looking good, and clean. It was the other tasks that haunted him. Laundry, as far as he was concerned, was all about shoving clothes in a washing machine, waiting for half an hour or so, and then shoving them in the dryer and waiting a little more. However, after one quick glance at the variety of washing detergents, softeners and bleach on the shelves of the laundry room, he was sure he was headed to disaster.

To make matters worse, Emma Swan had nothing but four closets full of clothes of the most varied materials, which obviously meant that there had to be some sort of specific procedure for every single one of them. _Oh, dear._ That thought inevitably led to its subsequent event: ironing. He had never been good at ironing, he had never even bothered getting better at it over the years. He considered it one of the dullest and most stupid chores humanity had ever known.

And then there was cooking. He knew enough not to starve: eggs, rice, pasta, the eventual beef stir fry… His repertoire, however, was less than impressive: what if Emma expected a different meal every day? What it she was used to some sort of Cordon Bleu chef dancing around her kitchen with scallops and shallots?

He stopped thinking about what could go wrong, and concentrated on what he knew would go right.

Apparently, his future boss had the hots for him.

He frowned. Now that he thought about it, that was just another thing that could go wrong. Very wrong, as a matter of fact.

"Neal?"

Downstairs, Emma had just arrived back home, and called out for him, after opening the door.

When he finally arrived at the living room, he realized she was looking around the spotless tables, chairs and shelves with nothing but awe in her eyes.

"This is wonderful!" she said with a wide grin, and he had to smile as well – there was something contagious about her happiness, something that rubbed off on him even when he was not looking. "Great job!"

When he stood in front of her, she paused, with a frown. She sniffed once, and then twice.

"Is this cherry blossom that I smell?" she asked.

"Oh, it is, yes," he muttered, scratching the back of his neck with a guilty expression in his eyes. "When I was done, I decided to take a shower… but I forgot I had no soap with me, so I had to use your shower gel. I'm sorry."

She stared at his puppy eyes with a mixture of amusement and anger. _When he was done, he decided to take a shower._ The audacity! He had taken a shower in her bathroom, _after he was done_! With her shower gel! _And she had missed it!_

"I take it you used one of my towels as well?" she muttered.

"I did," he replied, and his face showed no sign of concern this time. "But I washed it and dried it right after that."

"Oh."

She took off her glasses, trying to buy some time as she rubbed her eyes. It had to be the hormones. There was no other explanation as to why she lost focus every time he smiled, or why she got those fuzzy feelings every time her eyes rested upon his.

He had known him for what? 24 hours? _How pathetic of hers._

"So…" she spoke again, after clearing her throat. "Have you found my bank statement?"

His eyes sparked with pride as he held up an envelope.

"I don't know if you did it on purpose…" he said, "but it was actually tucked inside a box of condoms."

'_One of the two dozen I found around the place,'_ he mentally remarked.

"I see you have an eye for detail," she replied, crossing her arms with a gleeful smile. "I am impressed!"

Of course she had done it on purpose. And at the time, hiding it in a box of condoms seemed a hilarious idea. Now that she looked at him, and realized the hidden message she ended up sending out, she regretted it immensely.

She blushed. There was always hope he would cut her some slack, somehow.

"Congratulations, Mr. Cassidy," she announced, trying to hide her embarrassment with her Freudian slip. "You're hired!"

Neal reached out to shake her hand, as his chest filled with relief. Finally, he would be able to pay some of his bills. Maybe buy a new suit… find a place to live. And there was still that extraordinary plus: Emma Swan was adorable.

"And here… are your 200 bucks."

He took the money from her hands, and had to stifle the laughter rattling inside him. The girl was officially his boss, and that put a very interesting spin on _everything_.

"I'll be expecting you tomorrow at seven," he heard her say, before they said their goodbyes.


	3. Chapter 3: Misreading Signals?

**Chapter 3: Misreading signals?**

Now the nightmare was for real. As Emma left to work the next day, he found himself with five baskets of laundry to do. He was staring at them, with his arms crossed, and his eyes were as puzzled as those of a man who tried to solve a very complicated algebra equation without a calculator.

"Oh, well," he muttered. "I guess it will be the traditional trial and error."

He separated the items by colors, and in two piles: heavy stuff, not so heavy stuff. Then he shoved the clothes into the washing machine in four different turns, added a considerable amount of soap and softener to the dark ones, added bleach to the light colors pile, and hoped all of them would get to the end of that day with their integrity intact.

Except for a purple woolen sweater, which now looked like a loose sack of potatoes, two silk scarves that seemed to have been stabbed to death, and a beige leather jacket that now sported some very noticeable bleach stains, he was rather successful in his task.

How Emma would react when she saw those casualties, however, was a mystery to him. He could only hope none of those items had some sort of sentimental value. Just in case, he decided to head to the kitchen and make her a decent meal: Thai chicken with lemongrass and coconut milk, his _Pièce de résistance_, a dish he would only go into the trouble of preparing when the situation really called for it. He had wondered if he should save that trump card for a rainy day, but his reasonable self pointed out that if he had indeed screwed up badly with the laundry, then he might not have any "rainy days" to look forward to.

When Emma Swan got home that day, a spicy combination of ginger and lemongrass filled her nostrils. She closed her eyes with a smile. Arriving home, not to order Chinese food and slump onto the sofa to watch TV, but to delight in a dinner made especially for her… with someone to talk to about her day… It was almost too good to be true.

And then, she remembered she had actually hired someone to do such things, and part of the magic in that scenario disappeared with a faint _poof_.

"Oh, hi."

And then, when Neal popped up from behind the kitchen door, wearing an apron while wiping his hands in a dishcloth, all the magic returned in a rush, and her heart swelled.

He looked so adorable.

'_You're paying him to be here,'_ her mind quickly reminded her, '_Don't get so happy about yourself.'_

"Hi."

When she replied, her smile had faded a little.

"Whatever it is that you have cooked, it smells delicious," she said, as she dropped her bag on a chair and walked over to the kitchen.

"Do you like Thai food?" he asked.

"I absolutely love it."

"Good," he smiled. "How about I fix you a drink?"

Emma chuckled.

"What?" Neal asked.

"Oh, nothing," she responded. "It's just that I don't remember reading anything about 'bartender skills' in your resume."

"Oh, not all my special skills are in my resume…" he said, with a sly grin.

"For instance?"

'_Lovemaking,'_ his mind promptly replied, and he had to stifle a cough.

"Hmm?"

"Canyoneering," he lied, avoiding her eyes.

"Oh."

He saw her bite her lip, and spent a long minute admiring her amused face. It was almost as if she had actually heard what his mind had said, and not his mouth, and that was one thing that mesmerized him. For some reason, Emma Swan seemed to understand his mental processes very well, and the most amazing part was that she seemed to genuinely enjoy them.

"So… what drink do you recommend?" she asked.

"If you have TY KU liquor in this bar of yours," he replied, looking at the multitude of bottles behind the counter. "I'd say you should go for a Hello Kitty."

"Wow, you're no amateur to this business, are you?"

"Meaning?" he asked, looking at her with curious eyes.

"Most people would just settle for a Martini," she replied.

"I don't like to settle for less than it is worth," he said, staring at her for a brief moment, before his mind caught up with him and reminded him that _she was his boss_.

"Makes sense," she answered, as soon as her voice found her way back into her mouth. For a brief moment, it had gone somewhere else, as his eyes pierced into hers. "It's right behind the bottle of El Dorado."

"What is?" he asked, looking slightly confused.

"The TY KU liquor."

"Oh."

He cleared his throat as he fished for the bottle, and Emma took a seat by the counter to watch him.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"Good. And yours?"

He raised his eyebrows. Maybe he should wait until after dinner to break the news about her clothes.

"Fine," he answered, after shaking the cocktail mixer and pouring her drink in a glass.

"Seriously?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "You're gonna make me drink alone?"

"Well, I'm on duty," he whispered, trying to hold back a smile. "Am I allowed to drink?"

"You're allowed to join me."

He smiled as he fixed himself a drink as well.

"May I ask you what you do for a living?" he asked, taking a seat by her side.

"You may," she answered, sipping her drink. "I work in a school."

"Really? Doing what?"

"I help with after-school programs for kids," she said, looking at him with a proud smile. "Outdoor activities, arts, hiking trips… stuff like that."

He tilted his head, and looked at her with renewed interest. He noticed how naïve and full of joy she appeared to be, with her girly dress and that lovely ponytail, not to mention those funny glasses, which suited her so well. Yet, there was something in her eyes, even when she smiled, that reminded him of his own… It was some sort of imprinted sadness, a shadow of loss, something hard to pinpoint. Yet, it was there, and it made her look, at the same time, like a girl and a woman, a mixture of hope and defiance, strength and vulnerability, and he found himself really drawn to it.

"What drove you into it?" he asked, eager to learn more about her story.

She replied with a smile, and Neal could see that question brought back memories.

"My parents left me at the side of a road when I was just a baby," she said, and he finally understood where that shadow in her eyes came from. It was right there, clearer than ever, as she talked about her family. "And when you grow up alone, like I did, in an orphanage, lots of things can go wrong," she took another sip of her drink. "You feel angry. You feel sad. There hasn't been a single day of my life when I didn't wish to see them again, just to understand why they didn't want me."

Emma stopped, feeling the corners of her eyes prickle. She sipped her drink again, wondering why she was opening up to him like that. She didn't talk to anyone about that. _Not ever._

"I guess that what saved me from a really screwed up life was the fact I had really great teachers," she went on. "I can't possibly explain how they made a difference in my life. I was really lucky, because I know that this is not what most kids in my situation get."

When she turned to look at Neal, she was actually surprised to see how absorbed he seemed to be in her story. She could only smile at how flattering his interest was.

"And this is why I do what I do today," she concluded with a shrug. "I thought I should give something back. And I really like it."

Neal's drink remained untouched, forgotten over the counter. The man's eyes were glued to the _woman_ by his side, as he listened to her story and noticed that she looked even more beautiful now, if that was remotely possible.

He should come up with something smart to say. Something would also be good. Instead, he remained silent, gazing at her in awe.

"May I ask you a question?" he heard her ask.

"Anything," he replied, and he meant it. After sharing such an important part of her past with him like that, that was the least she deserved.

"What was her name?"

"Whose?"

"Your ex-wife."

Neal lowered his eyes to his glass, and he finally raised it to his lips for the first time. After feeling the zesty sourness of the lemon sooth his throat, he was ready to open that can of worms.

"Tamara. I met her in college," he said, staring at his glass. "I have a degree in Law, did you know that?"

"I remember, from your resume," Emma replied, smiling lightly.

"Yeah. Well, to cut a long story short, we got married shortly after we graduated, and divorced less than a year later, when I found out she was having an affair with the Mendell part of the '_Cassidy&Mendell'_ law firm."

When he finally looked at Emma again, he was somewhat surprised at the sorrowful expression in her face. It was comforting to feel that she actually cared, and was not listening just to be polite.

"I am so sorry," she said, in a whisper.

"Yeah… Well, you know what happened next," he said, after taking another sip of his drink. "She managed to strip me of everything I had, except…"

He paused, and let out a smile.

"For your dignity?" Emma completed.

"Oh, no, she took that as well," he replied, and the two of them chuckled. "My car. A yellow bug."

"Well, at least she wanted you to have something…"

"No, nothing like that," he snorted. "She actually tried to sell it on eBay."

"But no one wanted to buy it?"

"Well, I did," he answered, wrinkling his forehead. "And I bought it. Used my last savings to do so, but it was worth it…"

Emma was now resting her head on her elbow as he talked. The way his eyes glowed when he talked about his car was so boyish and yet… there was something so sad and troubled about him that she couldn't help but feel that, somehow, they had more in common than both of them knew.

"You really have a thing for that car of yours, don't you?"

"Yeah…" he replied, and his eyes were dreamlike. "Tamara always hated it. Called it tacky. But to me… yeah. It's like family."

He turned to look at her, and let out another heartfelt smile.

"You're gonna laugh, but… I dream of taking a road trip all over the country with it."

"With a yellow bug?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Yeah!" he replied. "The engine is a beast."

"Sounds like an adventure," Emma said, smiling at his enthusiasm.

"Right?"

"Why didn't you?"

"What?"

"Go on a road trip with it?" she completed her question. "I mean, before…"

"Oh," he whispered, looking back at his glass. "It's just that… I never actually wanted to do it alone," he said, before turning to glance at her again. "Was waiting for the right person to join me."

Their eyes met for a long moment, and Emma had the very clear impression that he was going to kiss her when he leaned towards her.

"I think the food is burning," he announced, as he touched her arm and climbed down the stool before heading to the kitchen.

Luckily, he had gotten to the kitchen just in time to save dinner. Much to his surprise, Emma insisted that he joined her for the meal, and so he did. They talked about much lighter topics, and the food tasted good. He only mentioned the incident with her clothes when they were about to finish dessert, which turned out to be a very wise decision, since Emma seemed to care very little about the whole deal.

He was getting ready to leave when the phone rang, and Emma excused herself out of the room to answer it.

"Well, looks like you don't have to worry about dinner tomorrow," she announced, gleefully.

"Is that so?" he asked, putting on his coat.

"Yes. I'm… I'm going out with Graham."

Neal blinked, and stopped fumbling with his scarf for a split second.

"Graham?"

"Yeah… He's… kind of my boyfriend," she said, avoiding his eyes.

He nodded, looking away as he swallowed a massive lump on his throat. There was no reason at all for him to be disappointed, so why was he? Perhaps he had misread the signals that she was into him, and anyway, it was not as if it mattered. She was the boss, he was _the maid_. He was there because she was paying him. They had only known each other for three days. He couldn't possibly care less.

The fact he had to find so many arguments to convince himself of that only proved it was exactly the opposite.

"Well, then," he said at last, still avoiding her eyes. "Have a good night, Ms. Swan."

He left her apartment and made his way to the bug, kicking stones as he walked and wondering if there was a more pathetic way to end the day after receiving such news than to sleep in the backseat of a car parked somewhere in a posh neighborhood in Tallahassee.


	4. Chapter4: Not a good idea,but who cares?

**A/N: In which Emma and Neal get royally drunk and give in to their urges. Some dirty talk and rather explicit language, actually. Meant to be very raw, drunken raw, if you know what I mean. If you think it might offend you, do not go on! If I have done this right, you will be very angry at me by the end of this chapter – just like Neal was - and I do not blame you. XD**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Not a good idea, but who cares?**

In the day that followed and in the others, Neal made sure to engage in the most boring and daunting chores he could think of. He would clean toilets with surgical precision, sometimes even more than once a day. Ironing had become his favorite thing in life – especially now that he hardly burnt things anymore. Compared to his first week in Emma's place, when he made sure to destroy at least six tops, three pairs of pants and three dresses, that was quite a remarkable deed. He had even taken to gardening, and would offer to walk the neighbor's dog when he had nothing else to do.

He would do whatever it took to stay away from his boss.

It had taken him at least ten days to admit, in the first place, that he had feelings for her. And not just _those_ feelings – the ones that ended up with the two of them all sweaty and panting over each other in that wicked mind of his. _No._ He didn't have the hots for Emma Swan. Well, _he did,_ but it was not only that. He wished it were. It would be less complicated.

Unexplainably, that woman had clawed her way into his heart with her little smiles, with her wits, with her sense of humor, with her strength, with those girly dresses and ponytail and funny glasses and kindness and all those other things.

He had fallen for her. But, as usual, the joke was on him, and she had a boyfriend. In other words, whatever it was that his lame heart had in mind when it started beating faster for Emma Swan, it was time for a reality check. _She was off-limits._

And he missed talking to her, just like they had done in those first three days, before he learnt about Graham. _Oh, how he hated that name without a face._ Actually, thank God he had never seen the man in Emma's place. Thank God he had never seen him anywhere. It was bad enough as it was. The last thing he needed was to find out he was an impossibly good-looking and successful young man who made Emma laugh and… well. He refused to complete that sentence. As it was, he could at least fantasize that Graham was a very old, very wrinkled man with bad breath and a bank account even less impressive than his, with whom Emma had agreed to go out with as an act of charity.

That was the kind of thought that entertained his mind those days.

"Neal?" he heard Emma's voice behind him, and his shoulders went stiff.

"Yes?"

"Can you come here for a second?"

For a moment, he kept pretending he was nurturing a tulip, so that he would have the time to ensure his feelings were again under wraps before he glanced at her. One mistake and it would be fatal. Sooner or later, one of the many resumes he had been sending to law firms in Tallahassee would be picked, and that torment would be over. Until then, he would have to keep pretending Emma Swan was _just his boss_.

He rose to his feet, and when he turned his head to look at her, his heart skipped a beat.

"Emma," he asked, taking out his dirt-covered gloves as he walked towards her. "What is wrong?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.

Neal had been avoiding her for days, and the worst part was that there was absolutely nothing she could do. His housekeeping was becoming absolutely flawless, which meant that if in the first week or so she at least had the opportunity to rant at him for a burnt top or a stained sink, now there was nothing to hold on to.

"Do you think you can…" she said, but paused halfway. She had to be very careful as to how she would phrase that request, or things would end up like they always did: with Neal finding an excuse not to spend a single minute next to her.

She missed him, which was an absurd, to begin with. They had had coffee together once, then a rather superficial talk the next day, and then that dinner… That stupid, nonsensical, _flawless_ dinner!

No. It had _not_ been flawless. It would have been if he had kissed her, instead of patting her on the shoulder before heading to the kitchen to check if the dinner was burning.

If he had kissed her, she would have kissed him back. And then, when Graham called, she would have told the man to go take a walk. She was tired of it. Instead, she had been weak, and let him back into her life.

If only Neal had kissed her that night… Then _everything _would be different.

At least, that was what she liked to think.

"What?" Neal asked, staring at her with nothing but concern in her eyes.

Perhaps he had been selfish. _No._ As he looked at her red swollen eyes, he was sure he had been selfish. He had been so busy keeping his own feelings under wraps that he barely seemed to realize that Emma herself was going through some rough patch as well. But then again, what could he do? Look at him now, standing in front of her like a puppy, ready to do whatever it took to make her feel better, to put a smile back on her face, even if that meant making a fool of himself. That was what happened when he spent too much time near her. He didn't feel like leaving. He didn't feel like _letting her leave, _not if it was to meet Graham the Wrinkled.

And he knew he didn't have that right.

"What is it, Emma?" he asked again, with a frown.

"Can you cook me some dinner?" she asked, and Neal could notice she was holding something back.

"Well, yes, but I do cook dinner every-"

"And _stay,_ this time?"

He looked into her eyes for a moment, and gave her the only possible answer in such circumstances.

"Of course," he replied, with a smile. "So… what do you feel like eating?"

"Pizza."

"_Pizza?_ Oh my…" he repeated, scratching his head. "I think it is my fault, I should have told you what I can cook before I asked what you wanted to eat."

She chuckled at his words.

"I already know what you can cook, apart from Thai chicken," she said, crossing her arms. "Rice, smashed potatoes and noodles."

He opened his mouth to protest, but the smile on her face somehow managed to delay his response. Luckily for him, his brain quirked to life a few seconds later.

"You forgot my beautiful rendition of one of America's favorite dishes," he announced, stuffing out his chest. "_Scrambled eggs_."

She laughed heartily, and Neal felt his own chest swell with happiness. She was happy, he was happy, and the world was a beautiful place to live in.

"Now," he said, as the two of them left the balcony and walked back into the apartment. "Will you tell me why you have been crying?"

She remained silent until they reached the couch. Then, she let her body slump onto it, burying her face in one of the cushions as she burst into tears.

Sitting by her side, Neal didn't really know what to do.

"He is married, Neal!" she howled, as tears ran down her face. "Graham is married!"

"Son of a b-"

"And I knew he was!" she sobbed. "I always did."

"Oh," he muttered. Then, for a split moment, he pictured the faceless bastard _doing things_ to Emma. "Still, he is a fucking son of a bitch."

She kept looking at his face, waiting for his eyes to show how disappointed he was at her. He was a man of principles, and she had none! She felt the worst person to walk on earth, and it was only fair that he judged her, and found her an awful person for having an affair with a married man. She was ready for him to lecture her, she deserved it. She deserved the fact he would never look at her with the same respect as he did in the past.

"Emma, I am so sorry!" Neal whispered, touching her arm.

"Have you even _heard what I said?_" she screamed. "I said I knew the whole time! I was no victim!"

"Yes, you were," he said, lowering his eyes. "You were, Emma."

"No," she shook her head, taking off her glasses and wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. "I'm the only one to blame."

"Don't be ridiculous…"

"Yeah, I know," she sobbed. "I am ridiculous, I know."

"Emma, look at me," Neal said, lifting her chin so that her eyes met his. "Why do you think you started going out with him in the first place?"

She sobbed, and when she was about to answer, he started speaking again.

"Don't answer. Just think," he continued, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "You were lonely. He was at the right place, at the right time. You were having a bad day. Maybe _a lot_ of bad days."

She lowered her face into her hands, and he watched her shoulders shake as she cried.

"If anything, Emma… You were a victim of your loneliness."

If there was something he had a PhD on, it was on that particular matter. He knew all too well what it felt like, to be so sick of being alone that you started grasping at whatever grain of affection people threw at you. He had learnt it the hard way.

"But you know what?" he asked.

She raised her eyes to look at him once again.

"In the end, it's all about you. You can get married, have children, or stay single and party all night every night. But still, it's on you. No one can fix you, no one can mend what is broken," he said, and his eyes were distant and sad as he spoke. "No one but you. You will find that others never fill the void, no matter how hard you try."

He looked at her face, and wished he could simply kiss away that sad look in her eyes. She was sad, he was sad, and the world was a very ugly place to live in. But that was how things were – they could snog right now as if there was no tomorrow, but the hurt wouldn't mend itself that easily. It was a daily battle, but she could do it.

"Now how about that pizza?" he asked, prodding her in the ribs.

"I hate you, do you know that?" she whimpered, after she stood up to search for tissues in one of the drawers of the cabinet across from the couch.

"No, you don't," he said, stretching his arms lazily. "But… pray tell. What of Graham?"

"I dumped him," she replied, after blowing her nose. "A week ago."

'_WHAT?'_ his mind screamed, reminding him that he had spent the last seven days of his life moaning about a situation that, technically, did not exist anymore.

"And now he is calling me again, but I've had enough. I really have," she said. "When I went out with him that night… after _our dinner…" _she sniffed as she looked at Neal, "I guess I finally noticed how sick the whole thing was. I still went out again with him two days later, but by that time I could barely stand to look at his face..."

Neal's heart was doing a little dance of victory inside his chest. With an asinine grin splattered across his face, he saw her pick up the phone and order all the options the pizza parlor had in their menu.

"What?" she said, when she realized Neal was staring at her. "I'm angry. If I'm not having angry sex, than I'm having an angry dinner. And wine."

He chuckled. If the two of them were really about to have all the six bottles of wine she was picking up from behind the bar counter, then she had dismissed "angry sex" way too early.

"That is not an intelligent way to deal with the problem, but honestly, who cares?" he said gleefully, as they opened the first two bottles of wine and he thought more about the angry sex than the "getting sloshed" part of the night. "I shall join you!"

* * *

Three bottles of wine later, he had just finished telling Emma about the first time a girl gave him a blowjob.

Emma was almost falling from the couch, clutching her stomach as Neal finished his account, not sparing a single detail of his rather quick endeavor.

"I couldn't believe it," he added. "I don't think she could, either. Her face was like, 'What the fuck? _Is that it?_'"

Emma doubled over with laughter, again.

"Ok," he said, taking another swig from the bottle of wine and wetting his lips. "My turn."

"Hit me."

He glanced at her, and fought the urge to shove his tongue past her parted lips.

"Ok," he said, blinking. "Question. What's with all the condoms?"

"Whaaat?" she asked, with a very funny drunken expression.

"The first day I cleaned this place, I swear to God, I found more than twenty boxes of condoms, of all imaginable types. Glow in the dark. Raspberry flavored. Studded condoms. Ribbed condoms. I mean, in this some kind of "cock parade" fetish?"

Emma choked on her wine as he spoke, and then shrugged.

"I think they're cool," she said, as a mischievous grin curled her lips. "I'm a collector."

"Of condoms?" he asked, knowing that sooner or later that conversation would lead them both into trouble. "Or cocks?"

She let out another cackle, and that one was sure to have enraged any neighbor who was trying to sleep.

"Or both?" he asked, chuckling as well.

Then Emma's fist connected with his arm, and some of the wine he was drinking spilled on his chest.

"Idiot!" she whispered, staring at the wine trickling down his T-shirt.

"By the way, I have a confession to make," he said, realizing her stare and feeling his jeans were getting way too tight around his groin. "I stole one of your Vibrating Johnnies."

Another deafening shriek, and this time he reached out to cover her mouth, before someone decided to stop by and make a formal complaint.

"I just had to see how it worked!" he whispered.

"And?" she asked, with her eyes wide, and Neal couldn't help but notice her hand was clutching his thigh.

"It works!" he said, although he didn't actually think he should describe the circumstances of his experiment, not when she had been the one in his mind as he played with himself. "It does, it really does..."

He heard her laughter subside before she spoke again.

"I have a confession to make, too."

She licked her lips, and gave him a look that needed very few explanations. Now, in times like those, you had to know when to draw a line. They were both completely hammered, plastered, wasted, lit up like a Christmas tree, talking about blowjobs, condoms and penis rings, his own penis was about to tear a hole in his jeans, and she had totally eyefucked him as she whispered those last words.

That was the moment to get her under a cold shower, make them some strong bitter coffee and just call it a night, before they did something they would regret later.

Too bad there was very little blood left in his brain for him to come to that conclusion.

"Hmm?" he asked, taking another swig from the bottle and feeling his cock twitch as she moved over to whisper in his ear.

"I wanna _fuck_ you, Neal."

And then her tongue was halfway inside his ear, and he knew it was way too late to stop.

"Oh really?" he moaned, as his hands slid down the fly of his jeans, fumbling with the zipper in a hurry to get some release. He was impossibly hard.

"Really," she purred, and her hand fell over his as she also reached out for his leaking cock trapped inside his boxers.

"You want my cock?"

"Yeah…"

"Where?" he whispered again, after getting rid of his T-shirt. Emma had pulled down his boxers, and he saw his throbbing erection break free from its fabric constraints, as hard as steel, straining against his belly. The tip was oozing with pre-cum, and he smeared it all over his shaft as he stared into her hungry eyes.

She giggled, and moved to straddle him. Now he loved her girly dresses more than anything else in his life. As she ground her hips against his groin, the only thing preventing him from slipping inside that hot snatch of hers was her panties.

"Talk to me, Emma."

"Inside me," she purred, and her nails dug into his shoulders when he started sucking on her neck, licking and biting and sending shivers up and down her spine. "I want your cock buried all the way inside me."

When she felt him slip a finger inside her, and then two, she gasped. All that rush of desire was making her feel drowsy, and her limbs were now all tingly and numb.

"You're so fucking wet…" he moaned onto her neck, as he twisted his fingers inside her and felt her groan in response.

"Oh yeah, Neal…" she mumbled. "I want you to _fuck_ me…"

He let out a moan as he removed his soaked fingers from her, pulling her panties further aside and shifting his hips so that the tip of his cock was rubbing against her moist entrance. _He needed to be inside her. _He wanted to feel those fucking hot wet walls wrapped around his shaft, he wanted to feel them ripple as she came…

"If you want me to wear one of your magic condoms," he whispered, "this is the time."

However, there was no response. Instead, he felt her body grow heavy over his, as her head lolled to his shoulder.

"Emma?"

Still nothing.

"Emma?"

He carefully pulled her head back, only to find out she had had passed out on him.

"What?" he moaned, looking at her closed eyes. "No… Emma!" he whispered again, shaking her arms. "No! You can't leave me like this! Wake up!"

He looked down at his cock, then at the unconscious woman straddling him, then back at his cock.

"Can you believe this?" he asked, seeing it twitch sadly in response.

He let his own head fall back onto the sofa, as he rubbed the woman's back. He had a problem. No, he had _two _problems. He needed to finish what they had started or he would have a stroke. That was problem number one. Problem number two was that he also needed to take care of Emma, and take her to bed or at least lay her on the sofa.

Currently, with the woman sprawled over his lap, he could not do either.

Neal lifted her body from his and carefully laid her on the sofa, feeling her thigh rub against his erection in the process. His sight blurred, and maybe it was because of his hormones, maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was because, as he glanced at her lying in the couch, he was once again reminded of how beautiful she was, and how she made his heart beat faster.

He pulled her dress down with a resigned smile, covering her thighs and smoothing the fabric of her clothes so that she was as decent as possible.

Then he moved back to the edge of the sofa, and took a long, deep breath. His eyes, again, fell upon his groin.

"For crying out loud, you just won't go away, will you?" he told his throbbing erection, as he wrapped his hand around it.

_'Are you really gonna jerk off with an unconscious woman by your side?'_ said a shocked voice inside his mind.

_'So what? She's asleep. It's not as if she'll be offended, anyway,'_ another voice responded, without the slightest hint of concern.

_'Listen to yourself!'_

_'I need to cum!'_

_'She needs to be taken care of!'_

_'I still need to cum!'_

_'Cum some other time, you pervert! Show some respect!'_

"Oh, hell," Neal muttered, covering his eyes with one hand as he tried to shut up the voices in his head. With his other hand, he gave his cock a final tug, stuffed it back into his boxers and zipped up his jeans, after a considerable amount of struggle and an even larger amount of discomfort.

He dragged himself to the bathroom for a cold shower, but turned back when he remembered that tomorrow, he would have to explain what had happened, and although now everything was rather vivid in his memory, there was far too much alcohol in his blood stream to guarantee he wouldn't draw a complete blank after he took care of Emma and his head hit the pillow.

Cursing under his breath, he picked up a random piece of paper and started scribbling the events of the night, knowing that they would definitely land him into some sort of awkwardness when Emma finally woke up.


	5. Chapter 5: Give it your best shot

**_A/N: Thanks for your reviews, everyone! I'm glad you're enjoying reading this. I know I'm having a blast writing it, especially the smut, although it tends to leave me with a stupid grin on my face all day long. I just love Neal and Emma together. As I said before, if you think detailed descriptions of sex will make you feel uncomfortable, do not go on._**

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**_Chapter 5: Give it your best shot_**

When Emma Swan woke up the next morning, the first thing she noticed was that she was in her bed. Normally, that would not be a surprise. A bed was a place where people used to go to get some sleep, including her, and that was basic, random knowledge. The problem was, she didn't actually remember going to bed last night: the few, muddled memories that now flashed before her eyes had taken place in another room of her apartment.

And then, it got very hot in her bedroom. She made a mental note to check the thermostat as soon as she got up.

She wondered, then, how she had ended up in her bed, and then she remembered that a bed was not only the place where people slept. A bed, she slowly remarked, was also a place where people would usually go to get another kind of action.

She gulped. Had she and Neal…?

She pulled out the covers over her body to find out she was dressed. Good. But again, that didn't actually mean much, did it? At least, she still had her underwear on, although that didn't prove much either.

"Morning, princess."

Emma raised her eyes to look at the man leaning against the door frame with a mischievous smile on his lips.

Oh, shoot! They _had_ done it!

"Hi," she whispered, looking at his face with an undeniable flash of shame in her eyes. How adorable was he, with those jeans and that sweatshirt, and that messy hair, and those puppy eyes? More than that, how come she had finally given in to him – 'Hooray!' her mind screamed in delight – only to find out she couldn't remember the details?

"Do you remember anything about last night?" Neal asked, still standing by the door.

"Some things, yes," she muttered in return. "Some things… _no._"

"Want me to fill the gaps?" he asked.

"Yes… _please_."

Neal raised an eyebrow at her half-moaned response. But then, it had been his fault. After the previous night's fiasco, all he could think of was filling… _gaps_. Or something like that.

"Emma, don't even get me started," he muttered back, not even bothering to hide his bad mood.

"I remember straddling you," she said, without looking at his face.

"I remember that too."

"What happened then?"

Neal let out a sigh, as he fumbled in his pockets in search for the little list he had scribbled the night before.

"Here," he said, as he entered the room to hand her the piece of paper.

Her eyes darted through the blurred lines, trying to make sense of them.

"Boy, your handwriting sucks."

"Do you really want the details?" he barked as he took the list back, looking more than annoyed.

"Just the basics."

"The basics, ok," he snorted. That conversation was getting on his nerves, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that he still hadn't had the opportunity to… blow off steam, so to speak, after coming so close to… well... _coming?_ Oh, the horrors of sexual frustration! And he still had to hear his handwriting sucked! "So, essentially, there was some touching, and then you passed out and locked the gates of heaven on me."

"I have a hangover!" Emma complained. "Leave the metaphors for-"

_She was really going to make him say it._

"I was about to _penetrate you_ when you passed out," he hissed, wishing his boner wouldn't make another of its triumphant appearances as those words left his lips. "I touched you, I touched myself, and when I was about to put myself inside you, you passed out, is that clear enough? Want me to draw a picture?"

"And then you just stopped?"

"Of course I did."

"Neal," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Come on."

"Come on, _come on what?_" he snapped. "You had _passed out_! Do you really think I would go through with it? What kind of man do you think I am?"

"I'm sorry!" she replied, and her eyes went wide. "Geez! Why are you so cranky?"

"Honestly?" Neal replied, feeling his blood boil as she gave him a little smile, crossing her bare legs in front of him. There was just so much a man could take! "You still ask?"

Emma had to bite back the urge to laugh.

"You find it funny," he whispered. "Of course you do. You're evil, you know that?"

"I'll make up for that," she said, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, and somewhere below her waist. "As soon as the opportunity presents itself."

She saw him shake him head. _'Lie as much as you want,' _she thought. _'I know you liked the sound of that.'_

And then, her hormones ran away with her again. Why was she staring? _Why?_ Weren't things embarrassing enough already?

And why was he staring back? Oh, the horrors of unresolved sexual tension!

"Come on," Neal said. After that little tingle in his groin, he knew _exactly_ what would happen next if the two of them kept staring at each other _like that_. "I've made you breakfast."

He quickly left the room, and picked up his backpack from the couch when he saw Emma had finally gotten up and was now heading to the dining table.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Today is Sunday," he replied, walking towards the door. "I don't work Sundays."

She tilted her head to look at him, but he was not having any of it. While she had spent the last few hours enjoying the bliss of drunken sleep, he had forced himself to a very long cold shower and at least one whole pot of very strong coffee in order to recover some of his sobriety, so that he could take care of her. Oh no, she hadn't gracefully floated towards her bed. He had carried her, after she had woken up in the couch complaining that she would be sick. He had given her water, medicine, a shoulder to cry on when her emotions were all over the place, then more water, then bathroom, more crying, bathroom again, more water…. Before she could rest peacefully in her bed, he had endured hell. And while she was in bed, he found himself checking on her every five minutes to make sure she was fine.

There was _no way_ he would stay and work overtime.

"Seriously? After we nearly _did it_ in that couch, you still find it in you to pull the "on duty/not on duty" crap?" she said, raising her eyebrows. "I mean… _seriously?"_

He shrugged, trying not to smile. If she _wanted him_, she would have to ask.

"You're such a tease," she whispered. She knew what he was doing: he was giving her that look of defiance she had grown to know so well. "Very well, then. _As a guest,_ would you be as kind as to join me for breakfast?"

He looked at the floor, and his lips curled into a sly smile when he dropped his backpack onto the couch before heading to the kitchen to get himself a glass and a plate.

"You still owe me one for the "nearly" part of your sentence," he growled, when he joined her at the table.

"You're just not letting that one go, are you?"

"Never," he replied, taking a seat by her side. "I hope to live hundreds of years just to be able to remind you of that on a daily basis."

"How charming!" she said, trying to look serious. "But honestly, I can think of better things to do."

He poured himself some orange juice and raised his eyes to hers.

"I shall never fall for that one again," he replied, before taking a bite of a bagel, and she couldn't help but laugh, looking at him with nothing the purest form of delight in her eyes.

Somewhere along the line, _she had fallen for that man_.

"So, what are your plans for the day?" he asked.

Funny that she had come to that realization as he munched on a bagel. Maybe that was exactly the point. When you actually spent that much time looking at a certain person and thinking of how lovely he looked when he ate, it had to mean something.

Her eyes were wide. The toast in her hand, long forgotten.

"Emma," he repeated. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Oh," she finally woke up from her trance. "Sorry, what?"

"Are you going out, staying in…?"

"I don't know…" she replied, putting down her toast and reaching out for the coffee pot. "Haven't got any plans."

"Can I ask you something?" he whispered, crossing his hands and leaning forward. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Her hands trembled as she filled her cup, but she got herself together before it spilled onto the table.

"Go ahead."

"You grew up in an orphanage, right?"

"Correct."

"Do you have any rich relatives?" he asked.

She smiled lightly. Now she saw where that conversation was going.

"You want to know how I ended up in a rich condo in Tallahassee, is that it?"

"I'm just curious," Neal said, taking a sip of his juice and looking at her intently. "But you don't have to answer, if you think I'm being inconvenient."

Emma put down her cup of coffee and bit her lip with a quizzical look in her eyes.

"You know what?" she asked, with a smile. "I can actually show you the answer to your question. Care to join me for a trip outdoors?"

"Now?"

"Well, not now _now…_ I mean, I have to take a shower, get dressed and all…"

Neal nodded. It was definitely not now, then. Maybe in two, three hours at best.

"What do you say?" she asked, and her eyes were eager and excited as she waited for a response.

_How could he ever say no to those eyes?_

"Sounds great," he said, and soon enough she was joyfully making her way back to the bedroom as he headed to the kitchen. If he had to wait, he could as well make something useful out of his time.

* * *

"What is this place?" Neal asked, as he and Emma made their way into what looked an awful lot like a forest.

"This," Emma replied with a smile, "is the Rogue Valley Archery Club."

That explained the bow and the arrows she was carrying, obviously. Still, he was having a hard time believing that was a club, when they seemed to be going further into the wilderness.

"You asked me how I ended up where I am today," she said, as soon as they reached the first station, from which a target stood some fifty yards away. "This is it. I used to be a professional archer."

Neal felt his jaw had dropped to the floor, as he watched sweet, bespectacled-pony-tailed-in-a-girly-dress Emma Swan take her stance. Although the bow looked heavy, she didn't seem to be having any trouble maneuvering it as she loaded it, pointing towards the ground. He felt his throat tighten. There was something strangely enticing in how powerful she looked as she attached an arrow to the bowstring, and placed her index finger above the arrow as she held the string in the second joint of other two fingers.

He looked at her fiery eyes as she raised the bow and drew the string hand towards her mouth, and realized she was not the same Emma Swan who had left her apartment a few minutes ago. Who was that woman, for crying out loud?

Whatever the answer to that question was, all he knew was that he wanted her to be the mother of his children, if he was ever going to be a father one day.

He heard a click, and saw her fingers relax as the arrow flew towards its destination.

_Bullseye._

"Holy fuck," Neal muttered, and Emma turned her head to look at him with a proud look on her face.

"I took up archery when I was 10 years old, when I still lived in Phoenix" she explained. "I used to be this very angry kid, always picking fights at school, and there was this teacher of mine who told me I should take up some kind of activity that helped me get rid of all that energy. Too bad that I never liked the sports they offered at school…" she said, as they started walking again towards the next station. "One day, she assigns this project on medieval stuff… before I knew it, I was totally obsessed with the bow and arrow. Problem was, I had never seen it other than in books, and knew nobody who had a bow, to begin with."

They stopped when another target became visible further on, and she smiled.

"Not much later, she asks to talk to me after class, and tells me she had enrolled me in an archery class. She said that if I did really well, and really took it seriously, that I could get a scholarship. And I did get a scholarship later on. I loved it. I was good at it, it was almost as if it was on my DNA," Neal saw her eyes fill with tears. "What I only found out later was that she paid for all my classes until then. And I knew that they cost her a fortune."

She lowered the bow again, and prepared to load it with another arrow as a tear ran down her face.

"You have no idea what that meant to me," she said, wiping the tear away on her shoulder. "I decided I would be the best at it, and that I would make her proud."

She raised the bow and shot, barely taking a second to aim.

_Bullseye._

"And I did," she whispered, with another smile. "I won many tournaments, made a great deal of money, became a professional at age 14. I tried to pay her back for those classes, but she never accepted it."

"Why did you stop?" Neal asked.

She turned to look at him, with yet another of her girlish smiles.

"I guess that when a hobby becomes a burden, you have to reevaluate your priorities," she replied. "Being a pro is not as funny as it seems. It was actually making me very unhappy."

Neal kept looking at her for a long minute, not sure as to what he should do now. Actually, he knew what he _wanted_ to do, though, but maybe he should wait until she got rid of the bow. Otherwise, he might be in for some serious injury to his nether parts.

He smiled as she started to walk again.

"You know what?" he said, reaching out for the knife in his pocket and rolling it between his fingers. "I can better any of your shots."

She stopped dead on her tracks, and turned her head to look at him.

"Excuse me?"

"What you do with your bow… I can do better with my knife."

"Yeah, right," she snorted.

"Wanna bet?"

There it was, again. That stupid look of defiance!

_'Oh, Neal Cassidy…' _her mind screamed. _'How you frustrate me!'_

She slowly walked back to where the man was, and stood a mere inch from his face.

"Anything you want," she replied.

"Anything?"

She saw him raise his eyebrows, and rolled her eyes.

"See, that's your problem," she said. "You're just too full of your-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Neal had already thrown his knife, and it had landed right above Emma's arrow in the target.

She raised her eyebrows.

"Beginner's luck," she shrugged, as he walked to the target and pulled his knife out.

In a matter of seconds, he was back at her side, smiling widely.

"My oh my," he chanted. "I get the feeling someone here is a sore loser!"

"No, I'm n-"

He threw the knife again, and once again Emma's arrow swayed in the target.

"What the…?" she whispered. "Ok. Best of five."

Neal chuckled, as he cast a gaze towards the boxed lunches he had prepared lying on the ground.

"Fine. But I must say that there are things that are only good when they're hot…" he said. "Meatloaf being one of them."

Emma shook her head as he spoke.

"I still can't believe you made meatloaf…" she whispered, after retrieving the arrow from the target and walking back towards him.

"You give me far too little credit, Ms. Swan," he replied with a grin. "I am a good cook, after all."

"You'd make a hell of a husband…" she said, with an amused smile.

Neal cleared his throat as she prepared her bow, and only then did she fully understand what she had just said. Freud had to be laughing at her for those revealing moments of truth.

"T-That's not what I…" she stuttered, trying to regain her composure.

"That's ok", Neal replied, watching her draw the string closer to her face. "I know you want me."

Emma stumbled forward, and her arrow flew some good inches above the target.

"I request a do over," she said, trying to ignore the heat on her face.

"Go ahead," Neal chuckled. "I can do this all day."

Emma swallowed, and tried to steady herself again. Load, draw, shoot.

_White._

"Good one," said the man by her side, rolling his knife between his hands, "…but not _excellent_."

He then threw his knife, after aiming for no longer than three seconds.

_Bullseye._

Emmma gasped.

"I… I am… _absolutely shocked_," she muttered, turning her head to look at Neal with a frown. "You win."

"I guess so," he said, walking towards the target to retrieve his knife.

"So what do you want?" she asked, looking thoroughly devastated.

"Do I have to cash it in right now?" Neal asked, wrinkling his forehead. "Can't it wait?"

"What for?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet."

"You don't know what you want?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as he moved closer to her.

She watched him chuckle, and then look to the ground.

"All I want is you," he whispered, finally raising his eyes to hers.

And then, she felt his hand cup the back of her neck as he brought her lips to his softly, as if testing her willingness to deepen the kiss. Her free hand clutched the rim of his sweatshirt as she parted her lips, and the tip of her tongue sneaked out to touch his. Then she coaxed his tongue gently into her mouth, licking and sucking and feeling his warm breath on her lips, as he held her waist and pressed her body against a tree.

He sucked on her lower lip before thrusting his tongue inside her mouth again, grabbing a handful of her hair as a rush of desire ran through his veins. Then it was her turn to dominate the kiss, with the clear intention of shoving her tongue down his throat, and he couldn't help but moan as he felt her hand sneak under his sweatshirt and graze his chest with her nails.

"Neal…"

He loved the lust in her voice as she moaned his name.

"Neal, my arm…"

His eyes shot open.

"My arm is cramping…" she whispered, before letting out a chuckle. "I'm sorry, but can you give me a minute?"

Only then did he realize that she still had her bow strapped to her arm.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm so sorry!"

"That's OK," she replied, putting away the bow before taking his face in her hands.

She looked into his eyes for a long minute as her fingertips traced patterns around his cheekbone. He was so handsome, he had such gorgeous features, but his eyes… _His eyes hurt_. She frowned, knowing that what she was about to ask would be the ultimate buzz-kill, but she just couldn't stop herself. She had to know.

"What happened to you?"

Neal had braced himself for some sort of question as Emma looked at him, but that was definitely not it.

"Sorry, what?" he asked.

"Why are you so… sad?"

He had to swallow a lump in his throat, and blink.

"What makes you think I'm sad?"

"Your eyes. "

He looked away and walked towards the boxed lunches, shrugging.

"It's nothing."

All of a sudden, Neal really needed to avoid her gaze. Whatever it was that she had seen in his eyes, it would definitely not make for nice, pleasant conversation, and he was not about to dig into his past any time soon. They had just kissed, his mind was still fuzzy, they were having a great day… why ruin it?

"Ok," she said, as she moved to sit next to him after he took out a blanket from inside a bag and spread it on the earthy ground.

"It's been a long time since I had a picnic," he said, in a feeble attempt to make small talk.

By his side, Emma's lips curled into a smile. Her eyes, however, were burning right past his gleeful façade, and he soon realized it would be useless to trick that woman into his foolish game of make believe.

_She knew him too well_, and he felt slightly distraught at how fast she was stripping him of the walls he had carefully built around his heart.

"It's just…" he started, playing with a dry branch near him as if it was the most interesting thing on earth. "I don't know. Must be because life's roughed me up a little. I guess it shows," he said, raising his eyes to look at Emma. "But I'm fine, I really am."

She nodded in response, and it was obvious that she didn't believe he was fine, not in the slightest.

"I guess I should go," Neal said, as her eyes triggered his usual fight or flight response to that kind of situation.

"You don't have to," she said, grabbing his arm before he rose to his feet. "I'm sorry I brought it up. I didn't mean to upset you."

Emma let out another smile, and he felt enormously grateful for her consideration.

"Now," she said, trying her best to change the subject. "I think there is some apple sauce here somewhere..."

_She was so adorable. _And she had shared so much with him. The least he could do was show that she trusted her as well, even if he felt he was about to revisit a part of his life that always made him feel like crap…

"I spent a couple of years in an orphanage too," he said, avoiding her eyes. "You know, what I will tell you will sound strange, so just use your imagination. See it as a metaphor, whatever.

"Many years ago, my father and I were supposed to take a trip together. There was this… kind of pit we had to go through. I went in, and you have no idea how scared I was," he paused, as his mind took him back to that night when things had gone so horribly wrong. "I could see nothing below me. The only thing I could see was my father's hand, wrapped around mine. It was the only thing that kept me from falling. And in my mind…" he paused again, disappointed at himself for still letting those memories affect him so much, "he would either pull me up, or just join me. There was no third option."

He smiled sadly, and his eyes once again searched for hers, as if looking for some sort of encouragement to go on. He had never actually talked about that to anyone, and now he realized that voicing it, hearing the words, made everything even more real… and _painful_.

"And then he opened his grip and let go of me."

He let out a chuckle, trying not to fall into that pit, one more time, as he spoke.

"And that's the last thing I see before sleep, every single night," he concluded, making sure to lock away all those feelings before they got the best out of him. "You told me your parents left you at the side of a road, and that it hurt, because you never got to know why?" he said. "I was fourteen, I remember everything. _I know why._ I don't have the benefit of doubt."

And then, when he looked at Emma again, she saw she was holding out a napkin, with a deeply sorrowful look in her face.

Neal hadn't even noticed he was crying.

"Thanks," he muttered, slightly embarrassed with how that conversation had progressed. "I'm sorry, I just… I don't really like to talk about it."

He made sure to wipe away his tears as quickly as he could, struggling to put up his _'I-couldn't-possibly-care-less'_ act back in place.

Emma knew he was fighting a losing battle. In those last few minutes, he had revealed far too much about himself to be able to stuff it all back inside, and what would be the point, anyway? She hoped he understood he didn't have to pretend to be someone else around her. That it was okay to hurt. She hurt as well. _He wasn't alone. _

"And how did you make it?" she asked, in a whisper.

"You keep living. You try to put it behind you," he shrugged, putting away the apple sauce and lying on the blanket to look at the sky. "You think you'll get over it. But you don't. You don't get closure. And before you know… You are fighting so hard to stop feeling like crap that you just get yourself into stuff that makes you feel like crap even more."

"You shouldn't feel like crap, Neal…" she said, leaning towards him and touching his face. You're… you're amazing."

He chuckled, shifting his glance to the blue eyes hovering over his face.

"I mean it!" she said, smiling heartily. "You're quite the package, aren't you? You know how to use an iron, a stove…" she bit her lip as she spoke. "_Your fingers…_"

Neal's eyes went wide as he heard Emma's final words.

"Where did _that _come from?" he asked, and his voice was more than amused.

"I'm just trying to make you feel better!"

"Thanks, that was very… _naughty_ of you," he replied, laughing as he reached out to touch her face and feeling another pang in his heart. "I wish my ex-wife had been that appreciative, as well," he muttered. "She never liked me much."

Now, why, _why _did he have to bring Tamara into this, anyway? Probably because his feelings were all over the place? How pathetic of him to hold on so tightly to the role of underdog… Loved by no one, wanted by no one. _Pffff…_ Seriously! By now, he should know better! He should at least show he still had some self-esteem.

Except that right now he didn't actually feel he had any.

"Well, your ex is a cow," Emma said, looking into his eyes. "You deserve better."

Everyone had their bad days. She had had her fair share herself. She had been vulnerable, just like he was now. He would get better. All he needed to realize was how special he was.

She wanted him to feel appreciated. She wanted him to know how much _she appreciated him_.

She moved over to place her lips over his as her hands slid up his chest from under his sweatshirt. She loved the heat of his skin, loved to sense his breathing patterns change as her nails grazed his body. She flicked her tongue inside his mouth as she moved one of her legs over his, and then climbed on top of his torso to steady herself, feeling his hands on her hips, going up her back until he reached her neck and his fingertips touched her scalp, sending shivers up her spine.

She broke the kiss and let out a moan as she placed his hands over her breasts, feeling his cock twitch and strain under her legs.

"Emma…" he whispered, knowing that as he did so, his eyes were burning with lust. Yet, he was not sure he was in any condition to give her the sex they deserved. Right now, he was so painfully aroused that he feared she would barely have the time to warm up before he reached his long awaited climax. "I don't know… I don't th-"

"Sshh…" she whispered back, placing a finger over his lips. "Let me take care of you."

They would have time to do it together on some other occasion, and he had no idea how much she craved to feel his hot throbbing sex inside her. She shuddered at the mere thought. There would be time for everything, for every single fantasy she had nurtured since they had met, for every single encounter she had visualized as she touched herself, countless nights, _thinking of him._

Now, however, was not the time to focus on her urges, though she knew, judging by the wetness between her legs, that she would get off just as much as him with what she was about to do.

After she helped him out of his sweatshirt, she pressed a soft kiss on his lips, and then made her way down his body, ever so slowly. She kissed his jaw before biting his neck and let her fingertips dance across his collarbone, then pressed wet kisses down his chest, letting her tongue trail languidly down his skin, until it reached his navel. She stopped, and raised her eyes to his face.

Neal had raised himself on his elbows to look at Emma as she made her slow descent towards his crotch. His mouth was dry, and he wondered if she could hear how fast and forcefully his heart was pounding inside his chest. A moan escaped his throat when her hands finally brushed against his jeans, touching the huge bulge between his legs.

_He was so hard._

Emma carefully unzipped him and reached out for his erection, noticing a wet stain of pre-cum in his boxers. She then remembered that he had probably been desperate for release since the night before, when he had come so close to let all his desire spill into her. He raised his hips slightly so that she could pull down his jeans and boxers, and his cock sprung to her attention, swollen and hot.

She wet her lips as her hand formed a fist around his shaft, moving up and down his length, at first slowly and loosely, then faster and tighter. She cast a final look at Neal and saw him biting his lower lip as his chest heaved up and down, as if breathing was becoming a more difficult task at each passing moment.

And then, her moist lips closed around the tip of his cock, savoring the beads of liquid excitement that were starting to accumulate there. She felt her own sex tingle as her tongue swirled around his shaft, feeling him throb as her warm mouth engulfed him. She angled her head so that his cock could slide further into her mouth, and plunged onto it until his glans touched the back of her throat. Blinking as she successfully pushed away the gag reflex, she deepthroated him for a long minute, before letting his shaft out of her mouth.

Neal's sight was blurred as pleasure roamed him, scorching every single nerve in his body. When Emma finally released him from the velvety depths of her mouth, he saw a string of saliva connecting his cock to her lips, and felt he wouldn't last much longer, which was a shame. He wished he could revel in her touches and hot wet kisses for much more time.

"Emma…" he moaned, as wind blew past the trees around them. Everything was silent, except for their groans and moans and the wet slurping sound of her mouth working miracles on him.

She lifted her eyes to him again, stretching an arm towards him and catching his hand on hers. Their fingers intertwined and she wished he knew _she would not let go of him_. Somehow, as he squeezed her hand in his, _she knew he did._

"Emma," he moaned again, this time reaching for his own erection with a trembling hand. His breath was coming in short gasps now, and the tingle in his balls announced he was about to fill her mouth with his semen. "I'm gonna cum."

"I wanna taste you," she said, reaching down to touch herself and finding out she wouldn't last much longer either.

She dug her nails into his thigh as his fist slid up and down his shaft furiously. Then, his face contorted in a silent cry, and the first spurt of his hot semen landed on her neck. She quickly wrapped her lips around the tip of his cock so that she would catch the others in her mouth, tasting him, feeling his release slide down her throat, letting the musk scent of his sex fill her nostrils as he dumped more of his cum into her mouth.

For a split moment, it occurred to Neal that Emma might end up choking on his massive load. But then, what could he do? He had waited so long to get some release that of course his whole body was overreacting. When his cock finally stopped twitching, he felt absolutely drained. Even breathing required an amount of energy that he didn't feel he had anymore.

He let his sweat-covered body slump back onto the blanket, but his hand was still clinging to hers. Now that he thought about it, he was sure that he had been squeezing her hand so hard that it was a surprise he hadn't broken her fingers in the process.

Emma's eyes had fluttered closed as pleasure raided her body as well. She pressed a kiss to his still fully engorged shaft, and her lips made their way up his chest until she reached his collarbone again, tracing patterns with the tips of her fingers until she reached his face, and kissed his forehead.

When blue eyes met brown, she knew her heart no longer belonged to her.

Staring at Emma as she smiled at him, Neal's heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second.

_He felt the same._


	6. Chapter 6: Awake and sober

**A/N: I'm back! I'm back! I'm sorry it took so long. Thanks for your reviews - seriously, you have no idea how much I love each and every single one of them. So here it is, Monday morning at Swan's place. Bad news for Emma: the hottest maid in the neighborhood decides to quit his job. When I first wrote this chapter, there was no sex in it. Then, because our heroes have a little agenda of their own, they decided to get themselves busy exactly when I was reviewing it to be published. So, yeah. Detailed smut ahead, so stay away if you get offended by graphic language (sorry, not sorry!). Consider this one a quickie: Neal has more ambitious plans for his first ****_night_**** with a sober Emma Swan. And, little does he know, so does she. *loooong chapter of smut in the making - wink wink, nudge nudge* And yes, he shall be ****_very _****generous.**

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**PS: By the way, to those of you who were frustrated with `The last gig's lack of… well, ****_closure _****for Neal, I apologize. He actually did get… ****_closure_****, if you know what I mean, and the fact it went unnoticed only proves that I failed to write that scene well. I added a few words that, hopefully, will make things clearer. Sorry again! Sometimes part of the smut fails to flow from my mind to the screen. Hehe.**

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**Chapter 6: Awake and sober**

Neal Cassidy wondered what he should say, or do, when Emma Swan opened the door on that Monday morning, after how the day before had ended. He remembered they had stayed together for a long time, lying on that blanket, in silence, just staring at the clouds above them as he put himself together, trying to recover his senses.

Then, they headed back to her place, he showered – somehow expecting she would join him, which she didn't – and just when he was about to leave, she kissed him. He realized, however, she was hesitant as she did so, and for a moment he wondered if it was because she regretted what she had done to him at the club.

He honestly hoped she didn't.

The fact she was still his boss was perhaps troubling her. If that was the problem, then he was about to give her the solution: his resignation letter. After all, he had to admit that working at her place didn't feel like a job anymore, and now, more than ever, getting paid by her sounded far too awkward. He would gladly continue with his chores, though, if she wanted him to, but she needed to know she didn't have to pay him for that.

All she had to do was ask.

He let out a sigh, and finally pressed the doorbell.

Emma Swan shot up from the couch, trying not to spill her cocoa all over the place as she did so.

_He had arrived._

For the last few minutes, as she watched the clock approach seven o'clock, she had wondered what she should say, or do, when she saw Neal again. She remembered when they kissed at the club, and then… Heavens, she had given him a blowjob! More than that, she had enjoyed every single minute of it! The look in his eyes before, during and after it when he stared at her still gave her the chills…

But what if she was misreading the whole thing? He _worked_ for her. She was _paying_ him to be at her place every day at seven o'clock sharp. Would he even be back if it wasn't for his duty? She had kissed him before he left her place the night before – what kind of message was she sending?

She slowly walked towards the door and took her time to open it. When she did, there he was: hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, wrinkled forehead, those puppy eyes, and the lovely smile.

She couldn't help but smile back.

"Good morning," he said.

"Morning. Come on in."

She saw him walk into the apartment, and drop his backpack on the couch, just like he usually did. So that would be it. Just another day of work, and the usual 'let's pretend this never happened'.

Maybe it was better that way.

"So," she said, after clearing her throat. Her eyes had landed on the lamp next to the TV rack, and she had to thank the forces of destiny for the fact it was not working. All of a sudden, she knew what to tell the man who was standing with his back turned to her. "I was wondering if you could make the time to fix that lamp ne-"

"Can I kiss you?"

He had turned his head to look at her, and the hoarseness in his voice made her skin flush.

_'Damn you, Cassidy!'_ her mind screamed in frustration. Why couldn't she simply look away when he stared? Why did she feel like a foolish teenager in love when she was near him? Well, maybe because she was foolishly in love with him, after all. However, he didn't really need to know that – at least, not that fast.

"Now that is a strange question, don't you think?" she said, poking her glasses higher up her nose and trying to look as serious as she could.

"I still work for you," he replied, with that amused look that showed he was about to have a lot of fun with that conversation. "Might be awkward, but I really think I should know."

"Know what?"

"If I can kiss you or not."

"You shouldn't be asking if you 'can' kiss me, Neal," she answered, moving closer to him. "The real question is, _should_ you be kissing me?"

A-ha! Her brains were back, from wherever it was they had gone to when she opened that door! She had successfully approached him without blushing, and now it was his turn to come up with a decent response.

If only that was the case, though. Emma had barely finished her question when the man let out a chuckle and spoke again.

"Oh, I know I should. _I must_. All I need is your permission as my boss," he said, taking one step closer and giving her one of those daring smiles. "It's back in your court."

She had to blink several times at his audacity.

"How… How dare you?" she mumbled, as her eyes darted around the room. If she looked at his face, he would know she was running out of arguments. He would win. She couldn't let him.

"I can do this all day."

It was the most absolute truth. Seeing Emma struggle to keep her cool when she was so obviously thinking about the same thing he was – that is, wild, wet making out in the couch, maybe a quickie before she went to work – was simply priceless.

"Ok. So I am your boss," she said, taking off her glasses to rub their lenses with the fabric of her shirt, another excuse not to look at him in the eyes. "Clearly, that is an issue we have to sort out."

"Actually, I already have."

Emma watched as Neal gleefully reached out for his backpack, in another of his usual displays of swagger. Sometimes she just felt like punching him for being such a tease.

"Here," he said, giving her an envelope.

"What is this?"

"My resignation letter."

"Oh…"

She felt her heart sink at his words, and sure as hell her face gave her away. She was clearly disappointed. So after everything, he would just leave?

"So you're quitting?" she whispered.

"The job, yes. Doesn't feel right to get paid by you, not after yesterday."

_'Yeah right… Why stay now that I have already gotten off with you, you mean,'_ she thought, before letting out an unhappy chuckle. Of course. She should have known. In the end, he was just like all the others.

"What?" he asked, looking at her with a frown.

"Nothing. It's just… funny," she replied, putting her glasses back on and crossing her arms, trying to ignore the bitter taste in her mouth as she spoke. "All the men that have crossed my path were in it either for the money or for the sex. I just find it ironic that you're leaving after getting both."

For a split second, it occurred to him that he should point out they still hadn't covered all the bases when it came to sex, but then the sudden realization of what she had actually said hit him like a bullet in the back.

"I… I…" he stuttered, his voice a mixture of anger and disappointment. Was that what she really thought of him? That he was in it for her money, or because of the sex? "Emma… I… what the hell? Do you really think I'm resigning because… I… you… we, what happened…"

"It's fine. No need to explain, really. It's not the first time I have this kind of conversation."

He noticed that her eyes had lost the amused spark of minutes before, and there was an undeniable tone of sadness in her voice. It wasn't the first time people were walking out on her, he got it, but godammit, he was _not_ walking out on her!

"Emma, I think you got it all wrong…"

"Oh, I know I did," she said, giving him a faint smile. "I actually thought…"

She paused. She had thought he _cared_ about her. But then, it had been her fault. Maybe she had been alone for so long, and ended up enjoying his company so much, that she had failed to perform the occasional reality check. The man was only doing his job. In the end, he was not the one to blame.

"What?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter."

"Emma, the reason I'm resigning is…" he continued, surprised at how fast the situation was deteriorating, "is because I don't want you to think I'm here for the money. I'm not. I mean, of course I need the money, but to tell you the truth, three days into this job, and I actually felt like it wasn't even a job. I mean… Just being with you… just… doing things for you, to see you happy… that was the best payment I could get. I should have resigned a long time ago. I just… I just…" he stuttered again, trying to find the right words to say. "I'm sorry if I made you think I'm leaving. I'm not leaving, I just… I'll pay you back every cent as soon as I get another job."

One look at that man's face, and Emma knew he meant every word. She had to mentally tell her heart to stop leaping around joyfully in her chest, and also her own mind to stop repeating the part in which he defined her happiness as his best payment.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, frowning at his idea of paying her back. He had earned his money with his hard work, why would she ever want it back?

"This has never been about the money, Emma. I would still iron your clothes… and cook for you, and all the stuff, for free."

Now if that didn't show how much he cared about her, he wondered what did. Ironing for free, of all things! He hoped she would realize that only a man who is blindly in love would volunteer to perform such a daunting task.

When he looked at her, though, he knew that his message had gotten across. The spark was back in her eyes, and a little smile was beginning to curl her lips.

"Now wouldn't that be slave work?"

"I was thinking more of a volunteer kind of stuff."

"Like, you would volunteer to be my maid?"

"Housekeeper."

"Right. So you're not in it for the money, I see."

She let out a sigh.

"You might still be in it for the sex, though."

_'Busted,'_ he thought, unable to stop a smile forming in his lips. He swayed back and forth, looking at the ground.

"Oh, _I am_ in it for the sex," he whispered, raising his eyes to look at her again. "But not _only_ for the sex."

"Really?" Emma muttered, fully aware that the change in his tone of voice and that look in his eyes had just steered the conversation in a new direction.

"Really," he replied, taking a step closer to her.

"Can you prove that?"

"What?"

By now, he had already reached for her waist, and his eyes never left hers. Those eyes… Oh, she would end up getting into trouble because of those eyes.

She smirked. Who was she kidding, anyway? She was knee-deep in trouble already. All she had to do was to take the plunge.

Her body was ready. So was his, judging by the twitching shaft brushing against her hip.

"Can you stay clear of me for one week? Meaning, no sex, no petting, no snogging… at all?"

"No… " he whispered, turning her body around so that her back was pressed against him. "Seven minutes, maybe… Seven hours, if I try really _hard_…" as he spoke, he made sure to pull her body closer, so that she could feel his very obvious growing erection. "But seven days…"

She felt the familiar shivers going up and down her spine as he breathed into her neck, his hands reaching for the buttons of her shirt.

"Too bad, then," she replied, while her brain was still working properly. Or almost properly, at least. "I was going to propose a challenge."

Neal had to smile. Emma Swan and her challenges. He could only hope that, this time, it didn't involve cleaning rooms or finding bank statements in boxes of condoms.

"I get the feeling I will regret asking this…" he said, before biting her earlobe and sliding his mouth down her neck, kissing and sucking it as he finished unbuttoning her shirt, gently peeling it off her shoulders and arms and letting it fall to the ground. "But, what challenge?"

Her hands reached behind her to hold his hips as he pressed all the right buttons of her body. She would be late for work. Oh, yeah. Damn right she would. If only she could bring herself to escape his grasp.

_If only she wanted to._

"If you could keep your hands away from me for one week," she said, as he unclasped her bra, "maybe I would believe you're with me because you really care."

And then, she had to stifle a chuckle when she thought of her situation. As she announced what his little challenge would be, the fact was that _she_ was the one who was partially naked and almost begging him to take her, while _he_ still had all his clothes on and was keeping his cool despite the throbbing erection that rubbed insistently against her back.

It didn't look like she was the one setting the rules at all.

"Ok," he whispered into her ear, and then proceeded to press soft kisses along her shoulder. "Suppose I do, what happens then?"

_Fucking tease._ She was sure he was having a hell of a good time just hearing her moan as he calmly kept the conversation going.

"Come on, Neal…" she murmured, clutching the fabric of his jeans as he cupped her breasts and traced soft patterns around her hardened nipples. "Gimme some skin here, it's not fair…"

He chuckled against her neck, before pulling his T-shirt over his head.

"Better?" he asked, pressing his bare chest against her back as he returned his attention to her breasts.

"Uh-hum," she hummed, closing her eyes as the warmth of his skin blended with hers.

"What happens then, Emma?" he whispered, as one of his hands traveled to the zipper of her jeans. "If I win the challenge?"

"Whatever you want to," she replied, kicking her flats away as Neal slowly pulled down her pants.

"You telling me…" he whispered, pressing kisses along her jaw line as she finally stepped out of her jeans, "that if I manage not to have sex with you for a week, I will eventually… _get to have sex with you?_"

"Precisely."

His hand had reached between her legs and his fingers were now rubbing a wet spot in her panties. She was so fucking turned on… His breath caught in his throat and he bit his lip as his hand slid into her underwear to touch her moist slit. One touch, only one touch, and her sex was opening up to allow his finger inside.

"But then, if I don't resist it…" his voice was hoarse when he spoke again. "We'll have sex anyway, I suppose."

"We might."

Her voice was shaky, and it was likely due to the fact that Neal had just slipped another finger inside her, and was massaging her bud with his thumb.

"Sounds like a silly challenge to me," he whispered.

Her mouth was dry, and her legs quivered as slowly but steadily he sent her over the edge. She had to chuckle, though. His cock was twitching against her back, his fingers were working their magic on her and still, _still_, he found it in him to call her challenge 'silly'.

The man was obviously a sucker for banter.

"Oh, you know what? You're right," she mumbled, hoping her voice wouldn't falter as her heart raced with the rush of pleasure taking over her body. "Just forget about it. I knew you wouldn't be able to hold back."

"What do you mean, I wouldn't be able to?" he whispered back. "You think I'm some sort of sex addict?"

"Never said that."

"You know what…"

He then kissed the back of her neck, and slowly withdrew his soaked fingers from her just when she was about to peak.

"Seven days? _I'm game_."

Her breath was now coming in short gasps, but she wouldn't let him have the upper hand. She tried to keep her cool when she spoke again, but failed miserably at it: only after he had taken his hand back from inside her panties, did she realize what kind of underwear she was wearing.

"Oh my God…" she whispered, with her eyes wide.

"What?"

"Nothing," she moaned, trying to stifle a chuckle.

"Turn around. Let me look at you."

When she did, her eyes were full of lust, and still, she looked awfully embarrassed.

It would still take time for him to figure out what Emma Swan was all about.

"Why are you trying to cover yourself, woman?" he asked, seeing Emma's hands move uncomfortably around her body.

"Neal…" she said, looking mortified. "I'm wearing _boyshorts_. And not the sexy type. I don't know if it qualifies as sex material."

He couldn't believe his ears. His cock throbbed painfully as he devoured her body with his eyes, finding every single inch of it very high quality sex material, including her glasses and her humble grey boyshorts.

"What… what are you _talking about?_" he asked with a mixture of a frown and a smile.

He particularly found boyshorts very sexy. _Especially_ on Emma Swan.

She bit her lower lip, finally letting her arms fall to her side as his hungry eyes fell upon her breasts.

"The night I was drunk I think I had something classier on," she whispered, scraping his chest with her nails and pressing a soft kiss to his Adam's apple as she slowly unzipped his jeans.

"Emma, you're hilarious," he whispered back, shuddering as her tongue danced across a sensitive spot in his neck. "Do you honestly think I remember what you were wearing that night?"

She took a step back to look at his face, touching his jaw and watching intently as he clenched it. Her other hand was reaching for his cock, and she kept her eyes on his as he gasped when her fingers finally wrapped around him.

"You're so fucking hard…" she purred, feeling her own muscles contract at the prospect of having him inside her.

"Emma…" he moaned when her fingers brushed against the tip of his swollen cock. "This time… I want to go all the way with you."

"I'll punch you if you don't," she whispered, before catching his lower lip in her mouth, sucking and nibbling at it as her tongue sneaked out to caress his.

He kicked his shoes away and climbed out of his jeans and boxers without breaking the kiss, and proceeded to lift her in his arms and wrap her legs around his waist.

"I guess we are really meant to do it here, aren't we?" she said, laughing as he lowered her body onto the couch.

"I guess so," he whispered back, blinking excitedly as he positioned himself between her legs.

_'You're so beautiful,' _they both thought, as they stared into each other's eyes.

She smiled again as she brought his mouth to hers for another hungry kiss. He chuckled into her mouth as his fingers reached for the elastic band of her underwear.

"Just so you know, I'm only removing these because at this point, I really have to," he said, with a gleeful smile as he searched for her eyes. "I still think they look great on you."

She shook her head as he got rid of her underwear, and when there was no trace of clothing separating their bodies, she remembered.

"Oh shoot… The condoms… they're all in my bedroom," she whispered with a frown.

He gave her a quick peck on the lips and reached out for a red glass container on the side table behind him, fishing a condom from inside it as he wiggled his eyebrows.

"I don't believe it!" she laughed, looking at his smiling face. "You put condoms in the _candy jar?_"

"Honey, there was never any candy in it," he replied with a raised eyebrow, as he unrolled the condom down his shaft. "So, I figured… _why not?_"

"Very inappropriate…" she whispered, taking a long breath when she felt him touch her moist entrance, "but practical, I must admit."

"Right?" he replied, raising his eyes to hers as he tapped her clit with the tip of his cock. "If you inspect closely, you will find out I hid condoms in every single corner of this place… so we'll never be caught off guard."

She laughed again, partially because of his words, and partially because of the pleasure shooting up from between her legs.

"I guess that's what happens when you get Neal Cassidy for a housekeeper, huh?" she said.

He smiled at her words, tilting his head before speaking again.

"You should see what happens when you get me for a boyfriend."

And then, he held his breath.

_What a time to say something like that._

Luckily for him, Emma Swan was feeling bold.

"I can hardly wait to find out," she whispered, gently rubbing his arm and looking at him with another smile on her lips.

"Emma?"

"Hmm?"

"You awake?"

"I am."

"Sober?"

"Yeah."

"Can our bet wait?"

"It will have to."

And then, she felt him slip inside her, and little jolts of electricity raided her body as he kept pushing deeper.

"Oh, yeah, Neal," she moaned, her nails digging into his hips as he filled her. "Fuck yeah."

He stood still for a moment, waiting for her body to adjust to his length before pulling out and delving back in again, slowly increasing his tempo with each thrust. She was so fucking tight… He would really have to watch his pace, or her hot wetness would drive him over the edge far too soon.

"Fuck, Emma…"

He reached for a cushion and placed it under her lower back, so that she could tilt her hips upward as he thrust deeper into her, in a much more favorable angle.

"Oh God," she gasped, as his shaft rubbed against her clit on its way in, and then out. He was glad that angle was doing the trick for her, although the fact that she was now clenching her muscles around his cock wasn't making it any easier for him to delay his orgasm.

They kissed again, and this time their tongues clashed and their teeth scraped each other's lips as their movements became more erratic and urgent. He was breathing heavily into her mouth. She was moaning into his. The sound of his cock moving in and out of her slippery hole only heightened their bliss.

She was getting close, and so was he.

"Neal…" she moaned, feeling her whole body throb as her climax neared. "I'm gonna… "

Before she could finish her sentence, her words got lost somewhere in her throat and ended up replaced by a loud cry of pleasure. She arched her back and her nails dug into his shoulders with enough strength to draw blood.

"Fuck!"

Between the pain in his shoulders and the warmth spreading around his cock when Emma locked him inside her as she came, Neal felt his face contort with pleasure as he too cried his release.

"Emma!" he gasped as the tip of his cock pushed further into her, spurting his seed as his muscles contracted. "Oh fuck… Fuck…"

His heart rate had risen to its limit, and as it slowly started going back to normal, he let his body collapse over Emma, feeling her chest heave up and down as she too tried to catch her breath.

"This…" she whispered, after a long minute of silence in which she merely caressed his hair with the tips of her fingers. "We have to… do this… again."

He smiled onto her chest, unwilling to move.

"Agreed," he moaned back, kissing her lips and then lifting his body from hers against his will, to carefully pull out of her before any… _accident _happened.

Emma glanced lazily at his sweat-covered body as he stood up and walked towards the bathroom, letting her eyes soak in his figure. He had a magnificent bum. And great legs too. Great back… and shoulders. Her eyes fell upon ten bloody spots near his shoulder blades, and she bit her lower lip.

"I think I hurt you," she said, bringing herself to a sitting position when he reappeared in the room.

"You mean the shoulders?" he asked, as he sat by her side on the sofa, pulling her legs over his lap. "Nah, I'm fine," he then turned his head to look at her with a sassy smile. "But I'm planning to take it to court, regardless. Can you see the headline? '_Maid abused by employer shocks small community in Tallahassee'_."

She let out a chuckle.

"A real scandal. Brace yourself for the paparazzi," he said, leaning over to kiss her again.

Then, something buzzing near them caught his attention.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"My cell phone," she replied, and her eyes were wide when she spoke again. "Oh God, what time is it?"

"9:10," he answered, looking at her phone screen after finally locating it inside the one of the pockets of her jeans.

"WHAT?" she shot up from the couch.

"Ssh. Someone is calling you."

"Fuck!"

"Won't you answer?"

"_Fuck!_"

Her eyes darted madly around the room as she picked up her clothes from the floor.

"I was supposed to be at school by 8!"

"Yes?"

Her jaw dropped when Neal answered her phone.

"What are you doing?" she mouthed, but he just waved her off.

"Oh, I'm sorry, this is actually her housekeeper," he said. "Oh, I see. I apologize for that," he raised his glance to Emma. "You see, it is actually my fault. I came in today feeling… _ill_," Emma rolled her eyes as he spoke, and he had to stifle a chuckle. "Ms. Swan stayed to take care of me. She intended to call you, but she couldn't find her cell phone."

He kept pacing the room, ignoring Emma's gestures for him to hang up.

"If she's going to work?" he looked at her again, and saw her nodding. "Yes, she is going to work. When?" he frowned, trying to decipher what she was mouthing. "In thirty…" she shook her head, "sorry, I mean twenty…" she nodded. "She will be there in twenty minutes."

Emma covered her eyes and shook her head as he kept on talking.

"Me? Oh, yes, I do feel better," he said, as another smile curled his lips. "Much better. Thank you. Ok.I apologize again. You too."

"You are unbelievable," Emma said, when he finally hung up.

"You're welcome."

"I… I need to take a shower."

"What a coincidence!" he replied, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Me too!"

"Neal?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry, love," she whispered, placing a hand on his chest and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. "But the bet is now officially on."

"Oh, come on," he complained. "You can't be serious!"

"Seven days."

He let out a sigh, picking up his clothes from the floor as his shoulders drooped in defeat.

"Emma Swan… You will drive this man _insane._"

She giggled at his words, and then rushed to the shower.


	7. Chapter 7: Temptation Waits

**Disclaimer: Emma Swan and Neal Cassidy are not mine. If they were… Never mind.**

* * *

**A/N: I apologize. I really, really do. I should have updated Maid a long time ago. I wish I had had the time. But here it is, at long last! Thank you so, so much for your reviews: they really keep me going! You have no idea… The things you write make my day.**

**Now, about this chapter: you have been warned. The challenge is on. In other words: ****_ no sex_****. Boo… I know. We all love Swanfire smut (trust me, I'm a HUGE enthusiast of it, as you may have noticed… XD), but it was just not meant to be, except for some dirty thoughts here and there. And temptation… lots of it.**

**I took the opportunity to advance their relationship a little, with Neal going to Emma's workplace and all. Fluff stuff. Next chapter, things will get hotter, and I really hope all of you hang around for chapter 9, when Emma and Neal's long-awaited night will finally happen. It already has a title: 'And Straight on 'Til Morning'.**

**I guess you get the picture. XD**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Temptation Waits**

Those would be very interesting seven days.

It was not as if he hadn't been able to avoid Emma Swan for longer than that before: he had, rather successfully, done so while he thought she had a boyfriend.

Now, however, things were slightly more complicated. Technically, _he_ was the boyfriend this time. Or, not quite. Actually, he was still the housekeeper. More like a volunteer, though. Details, schmetails. Whatever his status was, the fact remained he and Emma had come together the day before. _Rather literally._

And then, there was that challenge. One week, no sex, no petting, no snogging. Ha…! Give a man a glass of water and he is likely to leave it untouched. Take it away from him, and tell him he is not allowed to have a drink, and you will see what a desperately thirsty man looks like.

Now he couldn't stop thinking about having sex with her again.

But he knew he could make it. Emma Swan was so much more than a hot fuck, and if she actually thought he was only in it for the sex, he would prove her wrong.

"But yeah… she is a hell of a hot fuck," he whispered, unable to stop himself. _'My thoughts… Please have mercy on me...'_ he continued, but this time engaging in a mental exchange with his inner self. _'Don't make me see her nipples again…'_

_'Maybe if you stop washing her bras…'_ his mind responded.

And then, he paused, looking at his foam covered hands and then at the pile of garments she had placed in a separate basket, with a note saying _'NO washing machine for those – need to be hand washed'_.

"I walked right into her trap, didn't I?"

He had forgotten that part. Apparently, Emma's challenge included her tormenting him with silly little pranks that included her taking a bath with the door to the bathroom wide open, asking him to 'give her a hand' when moving the furniture around, and now, making him wash her underwear. And it was Tuesday still!

He groaned as he resumed washing the bras. So she was having fun tempting him? Well, she could go on forever - he would not throw in the towel.

_'Oh yeah… the towel…'_ he heard his own voice inside his head, revisiting the moment when Emma climbed into the bathtub that morning after letting her towel fall to the floor precisely when he was walking past the bathroom.

Her naked shoulders… and back… and her butt… _Oh her butt…_

_'Dude…you are so gonna lose this challenge…' _

He smiled, after drying his hands and giving his stirring cock a gentle squeeze through his jeans, as if urging it to resume its peaceful sleep at least until he could take proper care of it in the shower later on.

No, _he wouldn't lose that challenge. _If there was one thing he was proud of, it was his resilience. He actually liked all the smug looks, the taunts, the silly chores she was assigning him. Overall, he liked that game, basically because he knew its rules very well, probably much better than Emma Swan herself. And if she thought she could really play in the big leagues like that…

_Then let her try._

"Knock, knock…"

He turned his head to find Emma leaning against the laundry room door, wearing one of her lovely girly flower dresses and a pair of knee-high boots.

Before he knew, voices inside his head were already engaging in another duel.

_'Lose the dress, keep the boots, and bend over the ironing board over there… just give me five minutes of your time.'_

_'Will you stop staring at her?''_

_'I bet you're wet as fuck, Ms. Swan. I know that smile.'_

_'Stop thinking these things! You will wake him up!'_

_'Too late.'_

"Home already?" he said, returning his attention to the pile of clothes to hide his growing erection. How ridiculous, really. He would really need to meditate later on, to get his urges back under control. He let out a sigh before speaking again. "Left work earlier?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'earlier'," she replied, walking towards him. "It's five o'clock already."

He frowned, turning to look at the clock on the wall.

"Oh," he said. "Time really flies when you're having fun."

"You find washing clothes fun?"

"No," he answered, turning around to look at her. No sex, no petting, no snogging. _Fine._ But he could, and would, deploy other tactics to give her a hard time as well. And so, he stared into her eyes, daring her to look away as he whispered. "I find _thinking of you_ fun."

By now, his bulging erection was more than obvious, and there was no way she would have missed it – not when it was less than an inch away from her thigh. However, in yet another display of nerve – which only turned him on even more – she held his stare, eyefucking him back.

She was aroused, he could tell. Though he applauded her attempt to keep a straight face, her nipples gave her away, as usual. Thank God for flimsy, non-padded bras and equally flimsy silk dresses. He wondered if she was even wearing a bra, to begin with.

"Is that so?" she asked.

"It is. Want the details?"

She blinked, and seemed to ponder for a moment. Then, she shrugged.

"Nah. Why make you suffer?"

He had no choice but to drop his gaze and chuckle.

"You know… telling me all the… _dirty things_ that are in your mind…" she whispered, tilting her head, "knowing that you still have what… six, five days of waiting… that would be cruel, don't you think?"

He was chewing on his tongue when he finally raised his eyes back to her. He had to concede she was a tough competitor, and much better at teasing than he had originally given her credit for.

_Maybe even better than him._

"Ms. Swan, may I say something about this challenge of yours?" he said, trying to stuff his hands in his pockets, only to find out it was not the best thing to do, given his… _condition._

"What?"

"Please don't be offended, but… you do realize that you are sabotaging the two of us, don't you?"

"What are you talking about?" she replied, frowning.

"Emma, come on, just look at us. I have a boner, you're all wet, we're in the laundry room eyef-

"Hey, _hey_," she interrupted, looking at him with a profound expression of disbelief. "Who says I'm wet?"

He tilted his head, in silence.

"You know what, how about this. I get to check, and if you're not, I officially lose the bet."

She shifted her feet uncomfortably, raising an eyebrow.

"No need for that," she said, trying to look unimpressed.

"See, that's what I'm talking about. Your challenge… It's all about proving that this is not about the sex. That we can enjoy each other in… other ways. And right now, with all the teasing, all I can think of is… obviously, _sex_. I might not be touching you for real, but in my mind I am. I am, and in very, very intimate ways. Many times today, in many different positions, and you know what? I feel like I'm cheating. I just think… you know, it's not right. You are more than sex to me, Emma, but the bath with the door open, the bras, the teasing… honestly, you're not helping."

"Are you telling me off?" she asked, crossing her arms after his little rant.

"For being a tease?"

"Yeah."

"I am. You mad at me?"

"No," she answered. "I find it… very typical of you."

"What exactly is typical of me?"

He kept staring at her, waiting for a response that never came. Instead, she just shrugged with a shy smile, and her eyes, for a few seconds, seemed to glow with something other than desire.

"I apologize," she said. "I promise I won't tease you anymore."

She then proceeded to press her hands against his chest, and after a long moment of silence, she kissed him on the cheek and walked away, leaving behind a very puzzled Neal Cassidy.

It would still take time for him to figure out what Emma Swan was all about.

* * *

"Girl, I'm serious about that report."

Emma looked at her supervisor and tried not to laugh as the woman spoke.

"I'm with Rochelle on that one, Swan," another tall, dark-haired woman said as she approached the table where the two other women were sitting. "Being two hours late for work requires some serious disciplinary action."

"Come on, you both," Emma replied, after taking off her glasses and giving them a tired look. "Don't you think I know what this is all about?"

The other two women tried to keep a serious face as they exchanged a quick look behind Emma's back.

"You two have been pestering me with this for two days now… threatening to write a report and take "disciplinary action"… and I'm still not bringing him here!"

"Ok, you know what," the woman named Rochelle stood up and put her hands on her hips. "You're right, Swan. This _is_ about bringing the man here. And you know why?"

Emma tilted her head, waiting to hear what her supervisor had to say before she put on her afro wig for the day's activities.

"Because now that you banged him, girl, we really have to know what he is all about."

Emma felt her jaw had dropped.

"Excuse me, I-I did not b-bang him!" she lied, blushing violently as she clumsily wore the wig and put on her sunglasses, hoping a hole in the ground would swallow her before the two women spoke again.

"Toccara, you hear that? She says she didn't bang him."

The other two women rolled their eyes and laughed.

"Kid, please," Toccara replied. "I call you that morning, he picks up the phone, says he's_ ill_, and then you get to work half an hour later, and you have this goofy smile all over your face."

Emma was at a loss for words. Had she been that obvious? It was true that she had thought about Neal on her way to work on Monday, and probably yes… she must have been smiling a lot that day, but still...

"Boy has a nice voice, by the way," Toccara concluded, wiggling her eyebrows.

"I… I j-just… We, I-I..." Emma stuttered, before letting her head fall onto the table. "God, this is so embarrassing…"

"Embarrassing?" Rochelle asked. "I'll tell you what embarrassing is. Not having anything to share with your girlfriends because you're the only one in the group who's not getting any, that's embarrassing."

The three of them burst into laughter, and Emma let out a sigh when all the giggling subsided. One of the best things about her job was that she got to work with those two women. They hardly ever met outside school, but the stories they told each other in-between classes, and the fact they took so much interest in her life always brought a smile to her lips.

"Make the call, sister. End the mystery," her colleague said, after their supervisor had left the room. "By now, even the kids want to meet him."

"Oh my Goodness," Emma was pale as she whispered. "Have they been talking about Monday as well?"

"I don't think they were that perceptive, no," Toccara replied. "But after you drew the man's picture last week, I think they got curious enough."

Emma whimpered. She had forgotten about that stupid picture. If Neal was really going to visit, then she would have to make sure he wouldn't come across the damn thing. After casting a final glance towards the other woman, she finally took her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed.

* * *

As Neal stopped at another traffic light, he looked at his forearms again, hoping he had been able to scrub off the smell of bleach from his skin. He had made sure to take a shower, wear some cologne and steal some of Emma's body lotion, but he still got the feeling that his arms were impregnated with that dreadful stench. Rubber gloves would protect his hands alright when he was scrubbing bathroom tiles, but _only_ his hands. His arms would suffer, and as a result he felt he was doomed to stink for the rest of the day.

That was why he was not particularly thrilled to show up at Emma's workplace that Wednesday afternoon to take her the scarf she had left home.

When he finally pulled over at the address she had texted him, he looked at his reflection in the rear view mirror and tried to fix his hair before getting out of the car.

_'You're not meeting her parents, dude. Just drop the damn scarf and leave.'_

His mind could be such a kill-joy, sometimes.

And so, he let out a sigh and headed to the school's entrance door.

"Excuse me?" he said, approaching the front desk, "My name is Neal Cassidy, I'm here t-"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Cassidy," he heard a very polite receptionist reply, and he couldn't help but notice she was dressed like a fairy. "Emma will be with you in a minute. Her class will finish in ten minutes or so."

"Ok…" he muttered in response, wondering if he should say his only purpose there was to deliver a scarf. Just then, his eyes drifted to one of the rooms behind the front desk, and his gaze fell upon a group of teenagers trying to copy a very complicated choreography performed by a woman wearing flared jeans and a flowered vest. He frowned. For some reason, her figure looked familiar… He kept looking, narrowing his eyes as the woman danced around with her afro wig and hippy sunglasses. When his glance caught up with her smile, his eyes went wide.

"Is that… is that her class?" he asked the receptionist, his amusement showing in his voice as he pointed at the glass door behind her.

"Yup," she replied. "It's funfair day today, hence everybody… dressing up."

"Oh, I see," he whispered, smiling as he watched Emma and her troupe. "If she had told me that over the phone, I would have chosen a more appropriate outfit."

He then looked at the receptionist again, and chuckled.

"Nice costume, by the way."

And he stood there, smiling like an idiot, as Emma Swan carried on with whatever activity she was leading. The kids were sure having a great time, and apparently, so was she.

_'Whatever it is you are about to think next, stop right there,' _a voice inside his head whispered.

_'Oh, what the hell? I was not even going to…'_

_'Yes you were! You were thinking about kids. Having kids with her!'_

_'That is not what I was thinking of! I was thinking, 'she will make a great moth-'_

_'…to your kids!'_

_'No! Why the fuck is it you never let me finish? I meant, 'she will make a great mother someday!'_

_'To your kids!'_

_'Oh, just shove it.'_

Ignoring the debate going on inside his head, he blinked when a bell rang and people started walking out of rooms and onto the hall.

"Can I…?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, go ahead," the receptionist replied, nodding as he moved towards the room behind the front desk.

"I didn't know you had to wear a wig to work."

Emma whipped her head around when he talked, and her eyes found him leaning lazily against the door frame, with a smile splattered across his face and her scarf firmly secured in his hand.

"I usually don't," she replied. "Today is funfair day."

"Sounds fun."

"Well, that's the idea."

She smiled, unable to look away. He looked so thoroughly intrigued by her outfit that it was almost as if she was looking at a child in an amusement park.

"Well, here is your scarf," he said, after clearing his throat.

"Oh, yeah."

The scarf. The only silly excuse she could find to bring him over. She realized his eyes were darting around the room, and soon enough he would locate the wall where the drawings from last week were hanging.

"Let's have some coffee, shall we?" she said, hurrying Neal out of that place.

On their way out, a few girls who were standing by the door ran away, giggling. A few others whispered to each other, exchanging secretive looks a few feet away from them. As they walked to the teachers' lounge, Neal got the very clear impression other people were also whispering behind their back.

"Is there anything I should know?" he asked with a frown.

"What?" Emma asked, pretending she hadn't noticed anything unusual.

"Nothing… I just think… oh well. Nothing."

Perhaps he was just imagining things, after all.

When Emma entered the teachers' lounge after Neal excused himself to go to the restroom, all eyes were on her.

"What?" she asked, taking off her sunglasses, but still looking too funny to be taken seriously despite the anger in her voice. "Can you guys act any weirder? You're making him uncomfortable!"

"Swan, we are making _you_ uncomfortable," her supervisor replied. "He seems to be completely fine."

The other teachers in the lounge nodded in agreement.

"Well, stop acting like teenagers, then!" she exclaimed, quickly looking over her shoulder and lowering her voice in case Neal showed up. "You're making _me_ uncomfortable! Is that better?"

"Whatever, _fille_," Toccara replied, walking towards her. "I only have one thing to say," she paused, looking around with a serious look on her face. "Hail to the bum!"

"Amen to that!" Rochelle exclaimed, and others nodded in agreement.

The whole room burst into laughter, except for Emma herself, who was too busy blushing out of control.

"And hail to the sassy smile, and to the hazel eyes!" the woman continued, patting her in the shoulder. "And is it me or the smells like cherry blossoms?" she exclaimed. "Girl... he's a keeper."

Emma scratched her neck and tried not to blush even more.

"He kept staring at you while you were dancing… with the silly wig and all… and the puppy look on his face… sister, you don't get that every day, oh no..."

"Stop saying these things, guys…" Emma whimpered. _Neal Cassidy was just a crush._ She refused to believe otherwise.

_'Yeah right,_' her own mind replied, finding that thought rather hilarious.

"Oh, I'm done here," Toccara said. "I just thought you should know."

In the meantime, Neal had just exited the restroom when a little girl wearing a tiara and a tutu dress tugged on his T-shirt.

"Mister, are you the boy in the picture?" she asked.

"Hey there," he replied, lowering himself on one knee to look at the child. "Picture? What picture?"

She then grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards the room he had been with Emma earlier on. He quickly rose to his feet and in a matter of seconds he found himself in front of a bulletin board covered with drawings and blurred paintings, above which the words "My Special Someones" had been painted in very bold, glitzy letters.

"There! In Ms Swan's picture."

The little girl pointed to the doodle of a boy wearing blue pants and a T-shirt. Next to it, there was a single word:

_Neal_

"Is that you, Mister?"

When the girl spoke, he had to blink several times to regain his senses. He had gotten lost in his own thoughts for a brief moment, wondering when exactly he had become a special someone in Emma Swan's life.

"Lilly, it's snack time."

Before he could answer, he heard Emma's voice behind him.

"Go join the others, ok?" she told the child, smoothing her tutu dress and tucking a strand of hair behind the girl's ear before she gleefully ran out of the room.

"So…" she inhaled deeply and crossed her arms, moving closer to him. "You found your picture, I guess."

"Yeah…" he replied, crossing his arms as well and avoiding her gaze for a moment. "You gave me quite a big head," he said at last, raising his eyes to hers and biting his lip.

She let out a chuckle, shaking her head.

"Well… maybe that's because _you have_ a big head."

He turned to look at the picture again, and then glanced back at her.

"Not that big, no," he wrinkled his forehead as he spoke.

"Maybe I should give up my career in the visual arts, then."

"Maybe," he whispered, trying to figure out the best way to address the issue now that his joke was wearing thin. "So, what was the occasion for this… board?"

"These kids are orphans, you know? Most of them, at least," she said, walking closer to the board and holding her hands behind her back as she stood by his side. "For some of them, it is tough to deal with all the family celebrations during the year… They feel they don't have one. And in a way, they don't. Not in the traditional sense, at least," she paused, taking her time to look at some of the drawings in front of her. "So I guess I was trying to make them notice that a family is also the people you surround yourself with, the ones that are special to you… they could be friends… the children you live with… the adults that truly care for you…" she paused again, and turned to look at him before speaking again. "Sometimes… _a really good maid…_"

He closed his eyes, smiling lightly at her words.

_Emma Swan… _That woman was really giving him no other choice. He had to say it, and he would do it while she was still wearing that silly wig and her silly costume, so that there would be no doubt about it.

"Emma…" he whispered, after touching her face and bringing her mouth to his in a soft kiss. "I lo-"

Just then, a torrent of giggles echoed around the room. When the two of them looked around, they spotted a group of girls standing by the door with their mouths covered, a second before they turned on their heels and ran.

"Oh now, _that_ is perfect," Emma said, rolling her eyes as she realized she had just given her supervisor another reason for disciplinary action. "I just got caught kissing a guy in the middle of a classroom…"

"I guess I should get going," he replied, biting back the urge to laugh at how fast she was blushing.

"Yeah," she whispered, after letting out a sigh. "I guess you should."

* * *

It was Thursday already.

"Thank Goodness…" Neal muttered, glad that they were halfway through the whole ordeal as he pressed the doorbell and waited outside Emma's apartment.

"Come in!"

And he did, after realizing she had left the door unlocked.

"You might live in a safe neighborhood, Ms. Swan," he said, trying to locate the woman in the living room, unsuccessfully, "but still, don't tempt fate."

"I'm sorry!" she replied, running from the kitchen holding a large dish in her hands. "I was making pancakes!"

He glanced at the dining table, and saw she had made herself a rather remarkable breakfast. He could see fruit, lots of them. And juice, coffee, milk… And then there were eggs. Toast. Now, pancakes.

"Feeling hungry, are we?"

"Idiot," she responded, with her usual snicker. "Join me?"

"What, are you courting me, Ms. Swan?"

He dropped his backpack onto the couch, and crossed his arms, looking at her from a distance.

"Stop calling me Ms. Swan, _maid_."

"Whoa… Someone woke up feeling hungry _and_ sassy."

She gave him another of her amused glances as she reached out for the jelly and apple sauce in the cabinet behind the table.

"I woke up early today…" she said. "Couldn't fall asleep again. So, I thought I could make us a decent breakfast."

"Royalty doing something useful for a change," he replied, to keep the taunts rolling. "Now that is a nice break in routine."

He watched as she narrowed her eyes, and moved closer to her with an even wider grin on his face.

"Having trouble sleeping, huh?"

"Neal…" she whispered, closing the distance between them. "I know you will be ridiculously full of yourself after you hear this… or, should I say, _fuller_ of yourself?" she pinched his arm, eliciting a throaty complaint, "but I want to call it off. This thing, the… the challenge, I want to call it off."

And then, her eyes became serious. Her lips curled backwards, changing her expression from cheerful to fearful in a matter of seconds, which always made his heart skip a beat. He loved that about her mouth: it was almost as expressive as her eyes, and he was sure Emma wasn't even aware how much it revealed about her feelings.

"I… I've been cheating too," she whispered. "I've been thinking of you all the time. Of doing… _things_ to you," she continued, pressing her palms against his chest as she gazed into his eyes. "I don't want to wait anymore. I want to make love to you, and I want to make love to you _now._"

Neal swallowed, knowing that his racing heartbeat was more than perceptible as her hands slid up and down his chest. _The Lord was testing him._ What was he supposed to say? Or, most importantly, what was he supposed to do, for that matter? The obvious thing would be thanking the woman for finally coming to her senses and then leading her on to the bedroom for a proper celebration. His whole self craved Emma Swan, desperately.

But no. _No._ Because he was Neal Cassidy, the universe's chew toy, he had to have a conscience. He had to actually do the right thing. He understood why she had proposed that silly challenge, to begin with: she was insecure. She saw herself as a woman who had men all over her either for the money or for the sex, never for the full 'Emma Swan' package deal. She wanted to be in a real relationship. He did, too.

And although the challenge itself was a very silly one, he couldn't brush away the feeling that if he did it, if he succumbed to her pleas and made love to her right then and there, she would eventually be disappointed. More at herself than at him. Because now, as he looked into her eyes, it was clear that the challenge was not his. _It was hers_. It was not about him keeping his hands away from her, but more like the other way around. She was the one who had been hiding behind the 'sex only' flag. In a way, it made sense. It worked as self-defense, as a means to stop people getting too close. No strings attached meant no getting hurt, after all.

"Emma…" he whispered, closing his eyes as he pressed his forehead against hers. Her hands had already slid to the fly of his jeans, and although there was nothing that he wanted more than to feel her fingers wrap around his throbbing erection, he knew he couldn't. "Love, no, listen to me…' he said, covering her hands with his and reluctantly pulling them away. "W-We can't. We made a deal, remember? Seven days… Trust me, I want to make love to you too, I want it bad, and I will," he turned her body around to press against her back while holding her in his arms. "On Monday, I will make love to you until both of us pass out, I swear," his voice was harsh with longing when he spoke, before pressing a soft kiss to her neck and opening his eyes again.

Her head had lolled to the side, and she moaned when his lips touched her skin. He saw that her eyelids had fluttered closed and her mouth was half-open as her chest heaved up and down. Oh evil forces of fate, have mercy! The scent of cherry blossoms filled his nostrils when his chin brushed against her hair, his head pounding as his cock twitched against her butt and made her moan again. And then, he moaned too, with his eyes closed _again_. One thing was _knowing_ what he had to do, another thing was _doing_ it. When she rubbed her butt against him, his eyes shot open. He would very soon reach that point of no return when his mind would refuse any prompt request for elaborate thinking.

_'Either leave, or just do it, for fuck's sake!' _a voice inside his head ranted.

"We just have to wait a few more days," he whispered, turning her body around again to look into her eyes. "We are halfway through it, princess."

She tilted her head, as her hands rested on his shoulders.

"I don't really understand you… did you know that?"

He kept looking at her face as she spoke.

"I thought my decision would blow your mind… and then… you blow my mind instead."

"Oh, you_ did_ blow my mind, Emma," he replied with a smile, trying to keep some distance between their bodies as he struggled to cool himself down. "You always do. And for the record, don't ask me to explain what I just did. All I know is that my body strongly disagrees with everything."

"Oh, I can see that…" she giggled, giving his straining cock a gentle squeeze before walking back to the table and taking a seat.

He gasped.

"You really shouldn't have done that…" he groaned, pulling out a chair with a grimace. "Now it will take ages til it goes back to sleep."

"I would offer to help with that, but given our… _circumstances…_"

"Better not," he replied, shifting on the chair as he tried to ignore the images in his mind. "So… more funfair at work today?"

"Nope. Not today."

"You are quite a dancer," he said, remembering her performance at the school the day before as he forked a pancake onto his plate.

"You should see my _lap _dance…" she replied with a sly smile. "It's legendary."

At her words, Neal nearly knocked over his glass of juice.

"I bet it is…" he muttered, shifting on the chair with a furrowed brow.

"I'm sorry," she chuckled, watching his reaction. "I just happen to have a very sexually active mind. Didn't mean to… _trouble you_ or anything."

"You never trouble me when you talk about sex," he replied. "It's one of the things I like best about you, actually."

"Is that so?" she responded, as she filled her cup with hot water and chose her tea.

"It is. I find it very refreshing."

"You horn dog…"

"I didn't mean it that way, _legendary lap dancer_. It's just… I like it that you're comfortable with sex. With doing it, and with voicing it," he said, after grabbing an apple and taking a bite. He just munched on it, eyeing Emma with interest before swallowing and speaking again. "It's a rare trait."

"So you don't think I'm a whore?"

"What?" he blurted out, and almost spat apple all over the table when he did so.

"For thinking about sex all the time? And then talking about it… and then trying to get you to do it with me?"

Emma sounded unconcerned when she talked, but Neal could see she was trying her best to avoid his eyes. Obviously, she had been treated or referred to as a whore in the past, and didn't seem to be particularly pleased with such memories.

"Oh, well," he said, taking another bite of his apple. "I think about sex all the time, I talk about it too… And I have tried, and succeeded in, mind you, getting you to do it with me," he said, shrugging and raising his eyebrows as he said his next few words. "If you are a whore, then I am a whore too."

And then, he saw her give him one of her most heartfelt smiles.

"We are a match made in heaven, don't you think?" he concluded, winking and wiggling his eyebrows as he spoke.

"I can't believe I found you..." she whispered, resting her head in her hand.

"Yeah…" he answered, still smiling as he looked at her. "Must have been fate."

"Do you believe in that?"

"Indeed I do."

"You're a character, Neal."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Emma shook her head. That man had swagger. He was swooning as he ate his apple, and still, his eyes were defiant… He had raised his head, and was now giving her that look… _that look…_ And then, before she could actually stop herself, her mind wandered south as it remembered his body…

"I wish I could see what's in your mind right now," he said.

"I don't know if you should…" she replied, dipping the tea bag into the hot water as if it was the most entertaining thing in the world. "Though, I'm quite sure you would like… what I'm thinking."

"Well…" he licked his lip and raised an eyebrow. "That tea bag seems to be having a hell of a good time."

She snickered.

"Well, you're close enough."

"What?" he asked.

Emma giggled again, trying not get carried away by all the unholy thoughts crossing her mind.

"What is close enough?" he asked again.

"Think about what you just said."

"About your tea?"

"About _tea bags_."

"Tea bags?"

"Yeah."

Neal frowned, looking slightly confused at their exchange.

"You've lost me."

"_Teabagging,_ Neal, Gosh!"

"Teabagging?"

"No?" Emma asked, trying her best not to burst into laughter. So the sassy sex-expert Neal Cassidy had no idea what she was talking about?

_Talk about surprising._

"What?" he asked again, frustration showing in every line of his face.

"Nothing comes to mind?"

"Lost me again."

"You know what?" she said, putting down her tea and rising to her feet. "Never mind. Forget it."

"Just tell me what it is!"

"I'll be late for work."

"Come on!" he whimpered.

"Really, just forget I mentioned it," she said, grabbing her bag as she prepared to leave, a grin splattered across her face. "It's better this way."

Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips and walked towards the door.

"See you later!"

"See ya…" he replied, waiting until she had left to run to her Mac.

't-e-a-b-a-g-g-i-n-g,' he typed, drinking from his orange juice as he waited for the search results to show up on screen.

"From the look on her face," he muttered, "I bet it is s-"

Before he could finish his sentence, his eyes caught up with the first definition showing on the computer screen, and his eyes went wide.

"Oh."

Whatever he had thought of… that was not it, although yeah, he had suspected it had something to do with sex. What surprised him was the fact Emma had such plans for _that_ beloved part of his body.

"Now this… this looks _good_," he whispered, reading more on the subject until he came across a link to a video. "_Watch 'Tea for Two'?_" he read from the screen. "Yes, why not?"

And so, he stared into the computer screen for the next ten minutes, all of a sudden feeling very hot as he mentally replaced the people involved with images of him and Emma.

When the video was over, his head was spinning.

"Emma Swan…" he whispered, slowly dragging himself to the shower in order to sober up after the woman's latest prank on him. "I am so _done _with your teasing."

She was beating him at his own game, and it was high time he bounced back.

Now he only had to figure out_ how._


	8. Chapter 8: Only two more days

**Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time. Quite obvious, huh?**

* * *

**A/N: Again, thank you guys so much for taking your time to leave a note. Cheers to all of you, you are the best (no kidding - I got the coolest reviewers in history!). Now, for my apologies: I know this chapter should have been published almost a week ago, but then… life happened, as usual. Trust me… If I could, I would write all day. But, alas, life is what it is. Now, for the chapter itself: a long one, I must warn you! Friday and Saturday, but do not worry, because Sunday will be covered very quickly in Chapter 9. For now, enjoy the references to some of the… ****_naughty_**** things that await our heroes in the next chapter. (It is coming, my loves! Rather literally, if I might say!)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 8: Only two more days**

"Ok, miscellaneous for 200…" Neal paused, and took a sip of his apple juice as he picked another card from the board. "Doing it with other men and/or women, doing it out in the open, wearing a costume."

The day before, Emma had arrived home with a package under her arm: a gift, for him. How endearing! As soon as he opened it, though, he had to laugh. _Jeopardy for Adults (Only)._ So, because he hadn't been aware of what 'teabagging' was, she felt she needed to quiz him on his knowledge about sex? What an impossible woman...

"What is a sexual fantasy?"

"Correct," he replied, watching her update the score chart. "Bonus question: what is one of your wildest fantasies? Extra 100 points."

Emma scratched her head for a moment, chewing on the pen cap with as she thought.

"I actually dream of… having sex in a swimming pool," she replied, raising an eyebrow with a wicked smile on her lips. "Not mine, someone else's. Like… a public swimming pool."

"Where you can get caught?"

"Yeah!" she replied, and her eyes seemed to spark as her grin widened.

_This woman._

"Naughty, ain't we?" he asked, his eyes darting from her mouth to her eyes, and then back to her mouth.

_Thoughts…_ if only he could control them.

"I'm a thrill-seeker."

"You sure are…"

"I didn't know this game had that kind of open-ended questions…"

"It actually doesn't."

"Neal!"

He smiled, putting the card away and lifting his glass to his lips again.

"From now on I demand to see all cards, ok?" she said, after sipping her hot cocoa.

"Ok."

"Yours?"

"What?"

"Oh, come on, let's settle this. You've tricked me into talking about a fantasy, now it's your turn."

He raised his eyebrows, looking at the cards with renewed interest to hide his own arousal as thoughts of what he fantasized about filled his mind. She really shouldn't be asking. More than that: _he really shouldn't answer_. If he did, he would not sugarcoat it, and voicing what he dreamt of – and planned on – doing to Emma Swan, would only add to the sexual tension building between them.

Plus, a certain gentle throb between his legs was always a good indicator of how much more teasing he would be able to deal with without doing anything… inappropriate.

Right now, it was not that gentle anymore.

"Well, as of now, I guess doing you in a public swimming pool is definitely in the Top 5," he answered, still avoiding her eyes. It was a fair answer: relatively harmless, rather mild, and absolutely true. Hopefully, she would be content.

However, she wasn't.

"Yeah right," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "Give me another one. I know you can do better."

He smirked, still looking at the cards, which were likely to burst into flames really soon if he didn't look away.

"Well…" he whispered, idly playing with a counter on the board, "I dream of watching you touch yourself as you moan my name…" he paused, and finally raised his lust-filled eyes to hers as he visualized every single detail of what he would say next, "…then eat you out 'til you come in my mouth… fuck you senseless… then come all over your breasts."

Emma's mouth hung open. To think that when it had been her turn to talk, all she had come up with was a meek 'sex in the swimming pool'.

Now, as a prize for her modesty, she would have to deal with all the 'until you come in my mouth' imagery. Why did he have to be that graphic, for crying out loud? Couldn't he have gone for the usual, like, 'you wearing a nurse outfit', or other less… explicit answers? Now his words were echoing in her head, making shivers go up and down her spine, and as if he hadn't been clear enough, he still had to look at her like that…

_Like he was actually about to eat her out._

_'Oh Holy Fuck of all Fucks in the Kingdom…'_

Her muscles clenched rather forcefully, and she gasped, quickly clearing her throat to hide the lewd moan that had threatened to escape her throat. What an impossible man! Why was he doing that to her?

"I shouldn't have asked," she muttered, shifting uncomfortably on the chair as she tried to ignore the intense throb between her legs.

"You shouldn't," he replied, fidgeting with the cards in front of him in a desperate attempt to ignore the woman's obvious arousal. "Really."

He raised her eyes to her face, noticing how flustered she had gotten. Friday… It was Friday. Heavens, why were they even talking about those things? Why were they not playing Monopoly? Blackjack? Anything other than a sex trivia game?

"She, for 400," he said, after letting out a sigh and getting up.

"The mons. The knees. The abs. The scalp," Emma read from a card, while he walked past her and headed to the kitchen to get another bottle of apple juice from the fridge.

"What are… parts of the body… that… apparently… have nothing in common?" he replied, pausing every now and then as he tried to come up with an answer.

"Oh come on…" she said. "It's not that difficult."

"What are erogenous zones?" he replied, stealing a glance at the card as he walked back to the table.

"Hey! You cheated!"

"No, I didn't!"

"You did! You looked at it!"

"Pff… Did not…" he whispered, but the smile on his face gave him away. "The knees?" he asked, wrinkling his nose and tilting his head. "Really?"

"A take-home lesson for you, Mr. Cassidy," Emma replied, tipping her chin upwards.

"I will bear that in mind… Your turn."

"He, for 600."

He picked another card and read it, after pouring himself another glass of juice.

"The period of time a man takes to recover after ejaculating."

"Aw…" Emma frowned, looking unhappy. "I don't know… It's not as if I get many second helpings myself," she shrugged. "What is 5 minutes?"

"Oh my…" Neal muttered in response. "I see I'll be dealing with very high expectations here…"

She giggled.

"The correct answer is 'What is refractory period'. And there would be a bonus question…" he showed her the card when she raised an eyebrow. "But since you have already taken your stab as to how long it usually lasts, then I'm not asking it."

"Well, at least tell me the answer."

Of course she was interested in that answer. From the look on her face, she really hoped it was only five minutes. _Oh dear._ He would have to make sure his body was ready: apparently, Emma Swan intended to ravish him continuously as soon as their ban on sex was lifted.

He licked his lip, and cleared his throat before reading the card again.

"For young adults, an average of 20 minutes."

"Whaaaat?" she exclaimed. "You're kidding! You men have a very defective machine in operation, then."

"Excuse me!" Neal put down his glass and looked at her with a profoundly offended look on his face. "I would rather view it as a complex mechanism that involves a lot of delicate tissue and… blood flow."

"We women require 'blood flow' too, you know."

"Well, not enough to produce a functioning…" he paused, hunting for a more inspirational word than the scientific term, "… penetrating warrior."

And then, she burst out in laughter.

"Oh my God, no! You didn't say that!"

"What?"

"'Penetrating Warrior?'" she blurted out, amidst giggles. "Is that how you call it?"

His eyes went wide and he frowned, in utter disbelief.

"Of course not! I was _joking!_"

"Liar!"

"I don't call it 'Penetrating Warrior', ok?"

"Oh yeah? And what do you call it, then?"

"I don't 'call it', Emma! I don't talk to my penis!'

"Liar! You sure do."

"I don't- Wait. How do you… Have you been watching me in the shower?"

_Checkmate._ She was still giggling, but his words had made her blush lightly. So she had been sneaking up on him!

"You left the door open once. I overheard it," she replied, avoiding his gaze. "Didn't watch."

"Yeah right…" he snorted, feeling extremely pleased with that revelation. He wondered if it had turned her on? Oh, what was he even thinking. That was Emma Swan, of course it had turned her on. Maybe… maybe she had even played with herself as she watched him jacking off… And then come when he cried his release…

Before he knew, his pants had become awfully tight, and so had his grip around his glass of juice.

He swallowed, and forced out a smile as he looked at her again. What were they talking about, anyway? Oh yeah. Whatever it was she had heard while he was in the shower.

"And what was I saying?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, but when she lifted her eyes from the table to stare at him again, he knew that the topic was making her hot as well. "It was more like indistinct blabber… and _moaning._"

He had to bite his tongue and use all of his self-control not to stand up, lift her from the chair and sit her on the table, swipe the board, the cards, the glass and everything else, and plunge into her until the two of them were writhing… and _moaning_.

_'Only two more days…'_ his mind reminded him. _'Only two more days.'_

He cleared his throat, and brought the glass of juice to his lips once again.

"Oh well..." he whispered. "I am shocked."

"Sure you are."

"I guarantee, though, that I've never used the expression "Penetrating Warrior", or any other name for my family jewels."

"Oh yeah? So what was all the talking about?"

He took another gulp of his juice and smiled. So she wanted to play? Fine. He would play. He leaned towards her, and after shifting his legs to the side of the chair so that his crotch was visible, he made a fist between his legs, and pretended to be jerking off.

"Yeah, Emma, ride my cock, fuck…" he whispered into her ear. "Fuck yeah, I'm gonna fill you with my seed…"

At his words, Emma jolted to the side and lost her balance, falling off the chair.

"You… asshole!" she screamed with a smile on her face, getting back on her feet as Neal burst into laughter.

_'If you didn't want to know the answer,'_ her mind pointed out. _'Then you shouldn't have asked the question…'_

The problem was, she _did_ want to know the answer. More than that: she had actually liked it.

* * *

An hour later, Emma Swan was lying on the couch, letting out another lazy sigh.

It was a good thing that she had taken a day off. The last few days had been rather busy at work, and she was tired. And then there was that challenge… what a stupid idea.

Actually, the part of her that was not climbing the walls felt particularly happy with how things were going between Neal and her. Every single moment they had spent together had been worth it. By now, it was more than obvious Neal was not like the other men she had met. She knew that, and had unsuccessfully tried to undo the whole thing the day before, but now the man was determined to go through with it, so she would just have to suck it up and get her act together.

Only two more days to go. It was not that bad.

She lowered her eyes to the book she was reading, or at least pretending to.

_Sucking a mango fruit_

Her eyes danced sleepily over the words, not really interested in them at this point… She wanted to see the illustrations…

And then, he was back in the room, wearing nothing but his jeans. No shoes, no T-shirt… His chest still damp, just like his hair.

_'Oh great… So now he is just gonna show off…'_

Without a word, he headed to the bar, and fished something from behind the counter.

_'What is that? A mixer? Yeah… Be a nice boy, Neal. I could really, really do with a drink…'_

Her eyelids were heavy as she watched him walk towards her, shaking the mixer as he walked, a sly smile curling his lips.

"My God… I love your body, you know that?" she said, her arm falling limply from the couch as her eyes danced over his chest.

"Oh, I know," he replied, a mere foot away from where she was. "I love your body too. Are you wearing panties?"

"What?" she asked, with a frown.

"Are you?"

"Of course I'm-"

She paused. Just to make sure, she had reached under her dress to check.

"…not."

And then, he licked his lips as his eyes darted from her face to her legs, and from legs to where her hand was lodged.

"H-How… did you know?"

"Could you please get up?"

"Why?"

He raised his eyebrows in response, and her eyes fell upon his crotch.

"Oh, you… I thought you would wait until Monday," she said with a smile on her lips as she stood up, leaning against the couch arm and looking at the bulge in his pants.

"Me too."

And then, he led the shaker to his lips, and squirted a shot into his mouth.

It was not a shaker, after all. It was a can of whipped cream.

"Sweet Fancy Moses," she muttered, her mouth hanging open as he swallowed.

"Want some?"

Her eyes darted from his face to the can, and then to his crotch and back to his face, trying to figure out what he was actually referring to. _Some what?_

Then, she realized it didn't really matter, because in both cases the answer would be the same.

"Y-Yes… Sure…"

He smiled, shortly before leaning on to kiss her, his lips parted to allow his tongue to dart out and flick against hers, slowly, sweet, softly… as if they had forever to pick up speed. Further down her body, his index finger had found its way to her slit, and for a second she felt something icy cold rub against her entrance.

And then, there was whipped cream. Except, not where she thought there would be.

Her eyes shot open as she gasped, instinctively clenching her legs and trapping Neal's hand, and the can he was holding, in the process.

"What… Neal… Fuck…Wha…This…Fuck…"

Neal, however, simply smiled at her reaction. As he kneeled in front of her, she got the feeling she would not get any explanations anytime soon.

His eyes remained glued to hers as he grabbed her dress and pulled it up, one of his hands firmly securing it behind her back, holding it high enough so that the top of her thighs and her mons were in full display before his eyes.

"Neal, wha-"

But before she started rambling again, he spread her legs apart, lifting one of them over the couch so that he had full acess to her sex. And then, she felt his tongue travel where no tongue had ever traveled, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Oh fuck, Neal…"

As his mouth explored her folds, that stupid Jeopardy song started playing inside her head, making her lose focus for a moment. But nothing that another long, wet lick didn't solve… her legs quivered, and she was quickly brought back to the game.

She ran her fingers through his hair as his tongue slowly pushed her over the edge… She didn't even know what her body was doing anymore.

"What the fuck is this?" she asked, marveling at her own sensations.

"Wrong answer, love," he whispered, licking his cream-covered lips as he emerged from between her legs. "It is, 'What is oral sex?'" He then gently kissed her mouth, before kneeling again. "And since it is double Jeopardy! Round, it's extra 1000 for each time I make you come."

Before she had the chance to say another word, her eyes shot open as her body hit the floor and she awoke from her dream.

She had fallen from the couch.

She quickly brought herself to a sitting position and tried to get up, her eyes darting around the room as she struggled to keep her balance.

"Nice dreams, huh?"

Neal's voice made her jump. When she turned around, he saw him standing by the bar, but this time wearing a T-shirt, although, just like in her dream, his hair was still damp…

"You…" she said, her legs still slightly shaky. "What…"

"Just saying," he replied, raising an eyebrow as he moved closer to her. "Looked like you were having a blast."

"Ha ha. Very funny," she narrowed her eyes, trying to ignore the intoxicating scent of verbena and lime that filled her nostrils when he approached her.

"Wanna share?" he whispered, brushing his knuckles against her neck as he stared at her lips.

"The fuck?" she frowned, feeling his warm breath on her mouth. So it was not enough to torment her in her dreams. Now he had to torture her with more of his touches and kisses when she was awake… Her body was still tingly from the brief imaginary workout she had been given, but apparently, he was not planning to give her any time to recover.

"Hey, easy…" he went on, giving her a soft kiss on the lips. "It's just that if you don't tell me… I can't make it come true…"

"Oh, now this is hilarious," she chuckled, after he kissed her again. "What makes you think I was dreaming of you, to begin with?"

"You were moaning my name."

She blinked. It was bad enough that he had witnessed her having a wet dream… Now that he knew he was _in it,_ she had no choice but to swallow that smug smile he was giving her.

"I don't… I don't even remember anymore," she said, looking away. It was partially true: although she did have a faint recollection of what it had been all about, sadly her dreams usually turned into dust as soon as she woke up.

"Well, in that case…" he replied, lowering himself to pick up the book she had been reading. "Kama Sutra?"

She tried to snatch the book from his hands, but he was faster.

"I'm not much of an acrobat, honey, so if you're planning on something special…" he said, turning his back to her to open the book, making sure it was out of her reach. "…please tell me in advance, so that I don't embarrass myself when the time comes…"

"I'm not planning on anything!" she exclaimed, blushing slightly when she finally managed to get the book back.

"Yeah, right."

"'Yeah, right' what? I'm serious!"

"OK," he shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he looked at her, smiling.

"You know what?" she replied, gently pushing him towards the door. "I think you should go."

"What?"

"It's way past five."

"But…"

"See you tomorrow!" she said, opening the door and shoving him out.

"Wait, I-"

"Bye Neal!" she screamed, after swinging the door shut.

As she walked away, she heard the doorbell chime.

"What?"

"Can I at least get my backpack?" he asked, as soon as Emma opened the door.

"Be fast."

"Jesus, woman," he muttered, picking up his backpack from a chair and heading out again, _"Why are you so cranky?"_

And then, she saw him smile in triumph. Oh, how he must have waited eagerly to use that sentence against her!

"Get. Out," she snarled.

And so he did, an even wider grin curling his lips as he walked to the bug.

* * *

It was Saturday, and Neal found himself lost in random thoughts.

Funny how things were. All his life, if there had been one thing he could always count on, was his bad luck. Whenever the opportunity for disaster presented itself, he was sure to be caught in the tornado, regardless of how unlikely it was. He thought of his father, and then the other lands he had visited, and then his marriage… A string of errors, a chain of events that reminded him of someone who goes down a slide filled with blades, just to land in a pool of lemon juice, and then, jump straight into a mountain of salt: a margarita from hell. He raised his eyes from the carpet he was vacuuming to the woman working at the computer not too far from him. And then, he had met Emma Swan.

And everything had changed.

All of a sudden, he felt he was the luckiest man to walk on earth. True, he still lived in a car, he still didn't have a proper job, he was still dirt-poor. But, perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt he had exactly everything he had always wanted to have: a harbor, _a purpose_, a true friend that, luckily for him, happened to be a better lover than he could have ever imagined. Emma Swan was his family. _His home._

And he was incredibly grateful for that.

"Say…" he said, putting away the vacuum cleaner and walking towards her desk. "Do you have any plans for the evening?"

"No…" she replied, taking off her glasses to rub her eyes. "Why?"

"Wanna have dinner with me?"

"You mean… go out for dinner?"

"Yeah."

He kept looking at her face, waiting for a response while she tapped her fingers on the desk.

"Sure," she said, smiling. "Why not?"

"When do you think you'll be done?"

"With this? Oh, I'm done already."

"Wanna go now?"

"Now? But it's not even 4. Don't you think it is a little too early for dinner?"

It was his turn to smile, as he tilted his head upwards and gave her a mischievous look.

"I was thinking of… showing you were I live first."

"Neal…"

"What?"

She rested her head on her hands, gazing at him for a long minute.

"I hope you don't have a hidden agenda."

"Like what? Getting you to give me a blowjob under the table as we eat?"

"Something like that."

"Or maybe get-"

"Stop," she interrupted. "I get your point," she got up and picked up her purse. "Let's go, before I change my mind."

While she grabbed a coat and headed to the door, Neal ran to the kitchen to pack a few snacks. It would be a long drive, after all, and dinner was still many, many hours away.

"So… I'm finally going to meet the famous Yellow Bug that you talk so much about."

"Yes, you are," he replied, locking the door behind him and handing her the key. "There he is."

He pointed at his car, parked just around the corner, and mentally reviewed the vehicle's condition. Luckily for him, he was the tidy type, which meant his home was always ready to receive guests.

"Nice to meet you, Herbie," Emma said, smiling at the car as she approached it. "I'm Emma Swan."

Neal chuckled, shaking his head. That woman had the most endearing habits indeed – talking to a car and giving it names had just entered the list of things he loved about her.

"Herbie?" he asked, when the two of them were already inside the car.

"Yeah," she replied, grabbing the brown paper bag he had handed her. "As in, 'Herbie the Love Bug'?"

He frowned.

"No?"

"Well… If you insist… Herbie it is."

"I don't think he will take offense," she said, searching inside the bag for something to eat. "Geez, what's with you and all the apples, apple juice, apple sauce, everything apple?"

He licked his lip, and cast a sideway glance towards her before answering.

"They say it makes semen taste better."

She stopped rummaging the bag for a second.

"O-Oh," she muttered, trying not to blush. "Thanks for the info. That was very… _educational._"

She frowned, after locating a bag of cookies and taking one to her mouth.

"You're welcome. I thought you would wanna know…" he whispered, "…since you're the one who's gonna swallow it."

A piece of chocolate got stuck in her throat, and she started coughing profusely.

"I'm sorry," she panted, after taking a large gulp of water from one of the bottles he had packed. "Since when do you get to decide that?"

"Well... If I remember it right, your terms were... I wait seven days, you get to do whatever I want."

Her eyes caught his for a moment, and she knew he meant every word.

_'Oh, Emma… What have you done to yourself?'_ her mind moaned.

"Oh... I see," she whispered.

"But don't worry, I'm a generous man."

She shifted uncomfortably on her seat as she eyed him. What the hell was that man planning? There she was, all joyous over the fact it was Saturday, and that soon enough the two of them would be allowed to succumb to all their carnal passions without any restraints… However, she had forgotten that little detail of their bargain: _he_ would be the one calling all the shots. _He_ would be the one who would have _whatever he wanted_.

And now that she thought about it, 'whatever he wanted' was a scarily broad category…

"You know… now that we are on that matter, I should ask." She should, indeed. At least, it would give her a chance to prepare for what was coming. "Do you intend to… you know… go anal on me?"

Neal felt his eye had twitched rather visibly. Emma Swan. One moment she was choking over a cookie as they talked about sperm, the other, she popped such a question with nothing but casualty in her voice.

"I-I-I…uh…t-this.. y-you…uh," he stuttered.

"Just so I get… prepared, if you know what I mean."

He swallowed. He had a faint idea of what kind of preparation she was talking about.

"Are you one of those guys obsessed with the butt, and nothing but?"

"Uh… I… well, I…"

"You are, aren't you?"

"No, actually, I…" he felt he was blushing. Were they really talking about anal sex? Really? "Ineverdonit."

"What?"

Of course she would make him repeat that.

"I've never… done it."

"You mean you've never had anal sex with a woman?"

"No. Or with a man, just so we're clear," he said. "Why are you laughing?"

"I don't think I've ever seen someone blush so much in my entire life."

He swallowed, feeling that his ears were burning.

"Thanks for pointing that out."

"Seriously? Were you never curious?"

"Of course I was curious. I… _I am_ curious, but… uh… I just never had the chance."

The most absolute truth. Such had been his fate: either he would come across a woman who was likely to agree to do it, but never actually gather the nerve to suggest it, or simply suggest it to the women who would never contemplate the possibility. In either scenario, it always ended with him not doing it, and sometimes, getting kicked out of the bed.

"But do you want to?"

"What?"

"Do it… with me?"

His hands were sweaty. He stole a glance at Emma, and saw that she was biting her lower lip. The Lord was testing him again. Images were filling his mind, images of him doing _it_ with _her_. Oh, the temptation. He had condoms. He could sure find something to use as lube. All he had to do was pull over and have her kneel on her seat, her legs pointed towards the door as her hands rested on his seat… Then he could enter her from behind while he stood outside the car and…

_'Oh, my thoughts, please stop… stop…'_

A very loud sound broke his reverie: he had shifted into the wrong gear, and Herbie was complaining. As he tried to remember how to drive, Emma chuckled by his side. Good that she was having fun while he struggled with his thoughts. Good for her, indeed.

"Well, you didn't sound very excited about it when you brought it up," he finally said, after some of the blood returned to his brain.

"That's because… you know… I never met anyone who could do it well."

"And you believe someone who has never done it… has a better chance of getting it right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I can guide you through it."

"Well, thanks," he muttered, trying not to let thoughts of Emma _guiding him through it_ fill his head. "That's very gracious of you."

"So… do you want it?"

_'My God, woman, what do you think?' _his mind yelled.

"Y-Yes."

From the corner of his eye, he could see her smile broaden, and he got the feeling that was exactly the answer she wanted to hear.

"Now can we please change the subject?" he said, after taking a long, deep breath.

"Well, you were the one who came up with the semen talk, don't blame me."

"Which I now thoroughly regret, thank you very much."

"You're welcome."

And so, for the next hour or so, they kept talking, but this time, about much more trivial things, like the neighbors, the projects she was developing at the school, the nicest places to get a drink in town, and such.

At a certain point, though, Emma realized something was off.

"Honestly, Neal, what are you up to?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, we've been on the road for almost two hours! You can't live that far away."

He smiled, and slowly took a left turn that led to a trail. He parked the car, and kept looking at his hands, which were still clutching the steering wheel.

"We're here."

"What?"

"This is where I live."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The bug, I… I live in the bug."

He avoided her gaze for a moment, knowing by the stiffness of her shoulders that she was having a hard time believing her ears.

"No you don't," she snorted.

"I do."

"No way! I mean… where do you take showers, and… and iron your clothes…"

He wrinkled his forehead, and finally turned his head to look at her.

"And do the laundry… and… "

Without saying a word, he kept staring at her, tilting his head slightly.

And then, it dawned on her. There was only one place where he could do all of that.

"No! Neal!"

"Yes."

"No!" as she spoke, Emma was sure she sounded absolutely shocked. And she _was_ shocked. "You've been living in a car for all the time we've known each other? And you never told me?"

"I am telling you now."

"You could be living with me, why didn't you say something?"

"Emma, I… I'm not complaining," he said, smiling lightly at the thought of… _living with her_. "And I just didn't find the right moment."

"You're crazy. How…"

"Look, there are certain… advantages, you know. Like, when I can't sleep, I drive around and end up in some pretty cool places," he bit his lip as he explained. "I can see the stars… the sea."

"Like, after a 2-hour drive?"

"Sometimes."

"Has it ever occurred to you that with the money you are spending on gas you might actually find some place to live?"

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe _I don't want to?_"

Emma shook her head, trying to make sense of any of it. He lived in a car, for Heaven's sake! How screwed up was that? And yet he was not complaining. And he had actually quit the only job he had, his only source of income at the moment, to be with her…

"You're a very strange man, Neal," she whispered.

"Guilty," he said, moving closer to her to press his lips against hers. He pulled back as soon as he felt the tip of her tongue sneak past his lips. As much as he wanted to deepen that kiss, he knew it wouldn't take much for him to lose the last bits of self-control he had. "Come on, let's go."

Emma let out a sigh when she joined him outside, and followed him down the trail. After a short walk, the two of them were overlooking a stretch of white sand bathed by the most crystalline waters she had ever seen. The sky was shining with gold as sunset approached, the few clouds amidst the reddening blue tinged with pink.

"Wow," she whispered, letting the sound of the waves breaking on the sea shore wash over her.

"Right?"

"Where are we?"

"Port St. Joe. But we actually took an alternative route. Not many people come to this part of the beach."

"It's beautiful…"

"It is… And the cool thing is that it's never crowded," he said, as he took off his shoes and rolled up his jeans. "Walk with me?"

Emma grabbed his hand after she too got rid of her flats, and the two of them walked towards the sea. They both looked at the ocean for a long moment, each of them with their own set of memories, trying to find some healing as the waves swept their feet.

"Do you like camping?" he asked.

"Hell yeah," Emma responded, turning around and walking backwards by his side to be able to see his face. "It's actually one of the things I like best."

"Me too. I guess it's another advantage of living in a bug," he replied. "I can just set my tent wherever I want to… make it my home for the night."

"You don't have to live in a bug to go camping, you know?"

He bit his lip at her remark. When he looked at her, she shrugged, a smile splattered across her face.

"The invitation is still on."

He looked away, trying to make sense of what exactly she was offering him. Obviously, she felt sorry for his situation, and wanted to do what any good friend would do: offer him some comfort. A bed to sleep in, a shower, a decent roof over his head. Still, there was something awkward about accepting that invitation: when they finally moved in together, he didn't want it to be because she felt sorry for him, but because she really wanted him to be with her. And not as a friend in need. As a man. As _her_ man.

He looked at her again, and kicked some water towards her. Minutes later, he did it again, and she did the same.

And then it was his turn, and by now she was actually angry that she was soaking wet while he had nothing but a few splashes of water on his jeans.

"Will you stop?" she yelled, shoving him to the side.

_"Will you stop?"_ he repeated, imitating his voice and kicking more water towards her, a childish grin spreading on his face.

"Goddammit, Neal!"

And then, she pushed him again, and he playfully returned the gesture, perhaps with the slightest hint of excessive strength.

She tumbled to the side rather clumsily, looking up at him with her glasses falling from her ear.

"Whaaat?"

"Oh Gosh, I'm sorry," he laughed, outstretching a hand to help her get back on her feet.

"You brute!" she replied, laughing as well. "Is this your idea of a romantic walk on the beach?"

She ignored his hand and got back on her feet on her own, glaring at Neal as she did so.

However, he was still busy laughing at her fall to notice, and when he finally realized what was going on, Emma had already grabbed his arm and pulled him over her head. When his back landed with a thud on the sandy surface, he felt he could barely breathe.

It was Emma's turn to burst into laughter.

"Eat that, tough boy."

He blinked, still trying to understand how she had been able to execute that throw so easily.

"No one knocks over Emma Swan and lives to tell the tale."

"The… the hell?" he stuttered, slowly bringing himself to a sting position. "How…?"

"This is not a girls' world, my friend," she said, and it was her turn to offer him a hand. "A woman needs to know how to defend herself."

"I see," he answered, grabbing her hand to get back on his feet. "Allow me to congratulate you on your self-defense techniques, then."

"As long as you stay close…" she replied, pushing her glasses farther up her nose, "…I got your back."

"Oh, so now _you_ will be the knight in the shiny armor?"

"Take it or leave it."

"My God… Why do I always get such roles?" he whimpered, brushing the sand from his pants. "First, the maid. Now, the damsel in distress. I'm starting to worry."

Emma chuckled, and took that opportunity to steal a kiss from him, and then break into a run.

"Come!" she said, climbing a rock and sitting cross-legged as she reached its top. "We are missing the sunset!"

They were, indeed. He joined her on top of the rock, and the two of them spent many minutes watching the sun go down, and as night settled in, each of them thought, again, about their lives… There was something soothing in the fact that, this time, differently from all the others when they had revisited their own share of painful memories, they were not alone…

"You know why I hired you?" she asked.

He turned his head to look at her. As the moonlight fell upon her face, Neal thought she had never looked so beautiful.

"Because of my irresistible charm?" he offered.

"Well… That _did _factor into my decision, yeah…" she answered, trying to bite back a smile. "But actually… I needed someone to give me a hand packing stuff and cleaning up the place before I left."

"Left?"

"Yeah…" she stretched her legs in front of her as she prepared to tell him her tale. "I told you that I used to live in Phoenix, right? Before I actually moved here, I took a kind of road trip myself. I… I wanted to find my parents," she paused, and Neal realized there was a distinct tone of sadness in her voice. "Then next thing I know, I end up in Florida and the place really gets to me… I don't know why, but I just felt I should stay. So I did. For longer than I thought I would. And then, this one day I wake up, and I am feeling so sad. Because I knew I was kind of giving up hope to find them, you know?" she paused again, pulling her legs closer to her chest before she spoke again. "It felt wrong to stay. So, my mind was made up when I headed to our interview. I would hire someone to help me get things done, and then it was the road again."

When she turned to look at his face again, his heart skipped a beat. He wondered what would have happened if he had never gotten married in the first place. Would he have ended up where he was now? Would he have even met Emma Swan? If her parents hadn't abandoned her… and his father hadn't abandoned him… would their paths have crossed anyway?

"But I guess life had other plans…" she whispered, still looking into his eyes.

"So what are you gonna do?" he asked. As much as he wanted her to stay, he also wanted her to keep on searching. He wanted her to get closure, something he knew he himself would never get.

"I'll keep on searching. I just… I just have to find another way. You know, it is almost as if they never existed. No documents, no nothing. They only left… a blanket with my name on it."

Her chin trembled, and he knew she was doing her best not to cry. He understood what it felt like, to grow up alone, to feel you are not good enough.

"I'm sure you will find them," he said, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips.

"Yeah…" she replied, smiling sadly as she sniffed. "Thanks."

Then, she shook her head and flexed her arms, trying to put her sadness aside for a moment.

"Hey… that tent of yours you told me about… Do you still have it?"

"Of course I do."

"Why don't we camp here tonight?"

"Emma… It's one tent for the two of us," he whispered, wrinkling his forehead as he thought of all the possibilities that sharing that little space with Emma offered. "Do you honestly think it will work?"

"I can hold back."

"Good for you."

"I know you can, too, come on."

Neal shook his head. That was not exactly how he had planned that night to end.

"What about dinner?"

"Do they open for lunch?"

"I guess."

"Then it's settled. Take me out tomorrow."

"We don't have that much food."

"I'm not hungry, I… I just really want to stay with you tonight."

And then, her lips slightly curled backwards, and she looked so vulnerable and honest in her words that he found himself officially out of arguments.

"Fine," he said, giving her a quick peck on the lips before he stood up. "Be right back."

_'Now that is going to be interesting,'_ his mind whispered in his ear. _'Moonlight… The sound of the ocean… The two of you in that tiny little tent…Really interesting.'_

"Point taken," Neal muttered to himself. "Now go back to sleep."

A few minutes later, he was back, carrying the brown paper bag with their food, and all the other equipment they needed. When the tent had finally been set up, the two of them climbed inside, and lay on their backs, silently.

"See? We can do this," Emma said.

"Just ma-"

"Shut up."

He chuckled, and after she had snuggled up against his chest, he pulled a blanket over the two of them.

"And don't move."

"Ok," Neal whispered.

Now that felt nice. Just having her lie against his chest, the warmth of her body over his… Yeah. He could actually do it.

"Good night, Neal."

He pressed a kiss to her hair, and closed his eyes.

"Night, Emma."


	9. Chapter 9: Prelude to a Monday Night

**A/N: No! This is not it, yet! And no! Do not worry! Chapter 10 WILL be published today XD. However, I really needed to publish this first half of the day as a prelude, otherwise the next chapter would not be as sexcentric as I wanted it to be. Also, it sets the scene for what is going on with Neal right now.**

**Poor man really can't catch a break, can he?**

* * *

**Chapter 9: Prelude to a Monday Night**

And then, it was Monday.

He had triumphed, even though he had to admit the previous morning had almost been his downfall. But who could blame him? Waking up in a tent, listening to the ocean, with the usual morning wood and a very warm Emma Swan by his side was the ultimate test of willpower.

And not only for him, apparently. As they crawled out of the tent to see the sunrise, she made him promise that they would be back some other day to do things… _properly._

_'Like, bringing marshmallows and roasting them over a bonfire,' _she had added.

Of course. _That_ was what she had meant. Marshmallows.

And then, after hiking for a while and taking some time to watch the ocean, they were heading back to Tallahassee, more specifically, to The White Hare, a medieval concoction of a tavern and a gambling parlor, where folks dressed up as knights and princesses would mix with much more modern-looking commoners either around the dartboard or the fighting ring.

Well… She had mentioned she liked medieval stuff, after all.

And she seemed, indeed, to have had a blast, especially when the two of them took up the house on the challenge of scoring a Hat Trick in darts in exchange for a free steak. They had to laugh. That was the kind of challenge that neither an archer nor a man with a flair for throwing knives was likely to lose.

Two free meals later, they headed back to her place, and now that she knew his home was a car, she insisted, again, that he stayed over.

He didn't. One day, perhaps, he would. But not under those circumstances.

Neal blinked when the cashier in the convenience store cleared her throat, still waiting for a response.

"Is that all?" she asked again, raising an eyebrow as she chewed her bubble gum and stared at him.

"Yeah," he finally muttered, smiling as he watched her put his only purchase in a small brown paper bag. "Thanks."

When he stepped outside, he emptied the content of the bag on his hand, and shook his head as he looked at the silver little gift he intended to give Emma Swan. Not that long ago, he had bought a diamond ring and proposed to a woman who had never truly loved him. Now, he had found the love of his life, and all he could afford was a keychain. And not even a fancy, 'bought-in-a-boutique' one.

_Talk about irony._

He put it back into the bag and searched for his car keys, and as he did so, a voice behind him drew his attention.

"Alms for the poor?" a woman asked, holding out a can that would be empty if it weren't for the few quarters clattering inside it. "Alms for this poor blind woman?"

He stole a quick glance towards her, and her vacant eyes sent shivers down his spine. And her words… and everything. Memories… of another time, another land, _another beggar._ He felt the ground disappear from under his feet for a split moment.

In a hurry to get away from the woman before he got swallowed by all the grief that had followed that particular occasion when he and his father had last aided a person in need, he fumbled with his pockets until he found some coins to give her…

And when he was about to leave, the woman grabbed his wrist.

"You're not from here, are you?" she asked, and again he felt his heart skip a beat. There was something… _something _about that woman that made him uncomfortable in a way he hadn't felt for a very long time.

"Neither is she," she whispered.

He tried to pull his hand away from her grasp, but she didn't let go.

"You love her. She loves you too."

He swallowed, trying to get his racing heartbeat under control.

_'It's a scam,'_ he told himself mentally. _'It's just a fake gipsy giving you some crap about your future, she wants your money…'_

"But a man will come between you both, and you will be made to choose."

He chuckled. Vague references to love and choices, a third party… stuff that could happen to anyone...

To think that, for a moment, he had worried.

"And for her to find her happiness," the woman continued, even after he managed to free his wrist from her grip, "…you will give up your own."

"Yeah, right…" he whispered, waiting for the woman to finally demand some bucks for the rest of the tale, in case he had gotten interested.

But she remained silent, and turned her head away.

"Alms for the poor?" she asked another passerby, shaking her can again.

* * *

The rest of the day went by without any other surprises, except for a long-awaited phone call: he had finally been called for a job interview.

Things were really happening. Emma, a job, soon enough a place to stay… _a family_. Maybe that was the time. Maybe it had finally come. Settling down with the _right_ person, making plans together, traveling around on their vacation, saving money for their kids' college.

He reached inside his backpack for the clothes he had chosen for the evening that approached, and a smile curled his lips. The two of them were barely a couple, and he was thinking about their kids.

As he ironed his dress shirt, he glanced at the mirror across the room to study his figure and check if everything was in place. The usual plain boxers, the usual plain jeans. Indeed, less was more. He made sure he had not gone overboard with his cologne, and after wearing his still-warm shirt, he walked to Emma's bed and checked the bedside tables. Condoms, mints, lube, water, more condoms, more water… of course. _Many_ bottles of water. He probably should get them something to eat as well. If everything went as planned, they wouldn't be leaving that room that soon… but he didn't want them to starve, either.

He buckled up his belt and rolled up his sleeves, casting a glance towards the window, and then at his watch. When he finally headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner, it was almost five.

Not much later, a click coming from the front door announced that Emma was finally home.

"Hey," he said, walking into the living room to greet her, still wearing an apron.

"Hey…"

When they kissed, she looked away, and in that split second when her eyes refused to meet his, he knew something was wrong.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," she muttered in response, and the way she was eager to step away from him made a frown replace the smile that had initially lit his face.

"No, hey," he asked again, grabbing her arm. "What's wrong?"

"Neal…" she whispered, finally raising her glance to his face. "We need to talk."

He felt his heart sink. 'We need to talk' was never a prelude to a nice, pleasant conversation.

"About…?"

"You'd better sit."

Another line that usually resulted in bitterness.

"OK."

"Try not to be mad until-"

"Emma, please, just…"

He tried to stay calm. After all, it was their long-awaited night. Whatever bad news she was trying to break couldn't be that bad. He could stand it.

"Graham has been calling me all week," she said, and he couldn't help but notice her chin had trembled when his name left her lips. "He got a divorce and he… he wants to see me."

"And?" he raised his eyebrows, and bit his lip. He was not angry. He would not be angry.

His eyes darted from Emma's eyes to her hands, which she was now clutching over her lap as if agonizing about what she was going to say next.

"He's coming over tonight."

Neal opened his mouth, his eyebrows so far up his forehead that for a moment his whole face looked like a cubist portrait.

And then, he burst into laughter.

"Good one!" he exclaimed, poking Emma on the ribs. "You know, you almost had me for a moment. You're good."

He kissed her, still laughing at her prank, but she remained serious.

"Nah… you're not serious."

His laughter died down when she lowered her eyes to her lap.

"You _are_ serious!"

His mouth was hanging open again, and he was so shocked he could barely find the words he wanted to use.

"Emma… No! What… what the _fuck_ were you thinking?"

"Neal, please let me finish."

"Hell, no! Emma!" he got to his feet, looking around as if the room was on fire and he had to find a way out to save his life. "Why would you…"

"I'm sorry!"

He looked into her eyes, and then it hit him. That was why she had that look on her face. That was why she couldn't look at him in the eyes.

Graham had gotten a divorce, and she _was going to give him another chance._

And she was going to do it that night. _The night that was supposed to be theirs._

He felt his whole body was on fire. No, he was not angry. He was _furious_. When the doorbell rang, Emma sprung to her feet, but he was faster. Tearing away the apron and throwing it over the dining table, he marched towards the door, knowing at the very moment his hand touched the doorknob who he would find standing outside.

A tall, good-looking blue-eyed man, with his perfect hair and his perfect suit, and his perfect bouquet of red roses.

"You must be Graham," he muttered.

"Yes," the other man answered, looking slightly bewildered. "And you are…"

Neal snorted, and looked behind him to cast a poisonous look towards Emma.

"I'm just the maid."

"Neal, please wait…"

He made sure not to look at her face when she spoke, and simply grabbed his jacket from the back of one of the chairs.

"I'll give you two some… privacy," he whispered, before leaving her apartment and shutting the door behind him, his pace picking up as he headed to the bug, trying to outrun his humiliation.


	10. Chapter 10: And Straight on 'Til Morning

**A/N: And it is straight on 'til morning! And yes, this is not the end of it. I had to break it into two parts, so here is part one! The second part will include sleepy Neal (gifs come true) and the written result of the beautiful, inspiring smutty Swanfire art of ****dreamingconfessions**** (Neal and Emma in the bathtub). So stay tuned for more sexy times, because the night goes on!**

**THANKS for your wonderful, wonderful comments and words of support. Seriously, you are all brilliant. I love to read your reviews, so please keep them rolling!**

**WARNING: Detailed sex ahead. If you think it might offend you, skip this chapter and the next.**

* * *

**Chapter 10: And Straight on 'Til Morning**

To say that Graham had rained on his parade was an understatement.

He had left in such a hurry that he had completely forgotten to take the cheese breadsticks out of the oven. Whatever. Now he hoped they burned, and that the smoke would make the two of them choke as they made out.

He walked faster and blinked, trying to rid his mind of the images of Emma and Graham making out on the very same sofa where he and Emma had been together. Goodness! What joke was that? He was the one who should be with her, not some inglorious bastard who decided to pop out of nowhere after getting a divorce.

And now Emma was letting that idiotic, non-wrinkled, non-old, non-everything-he-had-hoped-he-would-be Graham back into her life.

What _fucking joke_ was that?

_'But a man will come between you both...'_

The blind woman's words echoed in his mind, and he gritted his teeth.

"Shut up," he muttered, clenching his hands into fists. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"

He had finally reached the bug, only to find out he had left his keys at Emma's place.

* * *

"Your… _maid_ seems to be quite a character," Graham said, allowing himself into her living room as soon as the other man left the apartment.

"He is not my 'maid', Graham."

Emma Swan looked at the man in front of her and wondered: how could she have ever thought he was the one? How could she have cried for him? Suffered… Dreamt of him… Waited… Who had she been fooling?

"Neal is my _boyfriend_."

As soon as those words left her mouth, she felt an urge to run after him, to tell him that he had gotten it all wrong, that whatever thought that had infuriated him that much was obviously not the real reason why she had told Graham to come over.

"I beg your pardon?" Graham asked, taking a step closer to her.

"That's why I called you here," she replied, looking into his eyes so that she would make herself perfectly clear. So he hadn't believed her when she had told him that over the phone? Very well. Now that they were face to face, there was no way her message wouldn't get through. "To tell you that it's over. Whatever it is we had… If we had anything at all… It's over. And I am dead serious, because the man you just saw?"

Graham kept looking at her with a frown, as if staring at a person with a serious mental issue.

"I love him."

She chuckled. It felt so good to say it aloud. She felt like repeating it forever. _She loved Neal Cassidy_. She wanted to be with him. Her eyes searched Graham's again, and her grin broadened. She had called him that night for another reason as well. She wanted to put herself to the test. She wanted to know… if she would falter if she ever saw him again.

And now she knew she wouldn't. There he was, right in front of her, and all she could think of was the angry man who had just left her apartment.

She was over Graham. She was free. Her heart… her heart was somewhere else.

"Emma… I… I don't know what to say."

"No, you don't. But I do," she said, still smiling at him. At that point, their past didn't even matter anymore. She felt so happy it was all over, that she was finally letting go of that ghost, that she couldn't even bring herself to rant at him for toying with her emotions not that long ago. "Best of luck in your future endeavors."

And then, she led him out of her apartment, and slammed the door behind him.

As she leaned against it, she closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. Now all she needed was to find Neal and explain everything.

She had just reached for her cell phone when she heard a knock on the door.

"Graham!" she yelled, dialing Neal's number as she touched the doorknob with her free hand. "I've already told you t-"

There was a moment of silence in which she only stared at Neal. Then, he picked up his phone from his pocket, and after glancing at the screen to check who was calling him, he cleared his throat.

"I forgot to take my keys," he muttered, looking at the carpet.

As soon as he came in, she locked the door behind them.

"Really?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Did you _really_ walk out like an angry little girl?"

"Angry little girl?"

He had whipped his head to look at her, and his eyes were tainted with anger.

"You invite Graham over, and now you're telling _me _off?"

"I-"

"Oh, _shut up_, Emma!"

"Shut up?" So he felt like screaming? _Fine._ She could scream as well. "I called him here to tell him we were over!"

"Really?" he was standing a mere foot from her, and he felt so absurdly annoyed at how that evening was turning out to be that he was sure he would scorch her with all the heat coming out of his body. "Since when do you need to invite him for a date to make that happen?"

"A _date?_" her eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of her head. "Are you _fucking retarded?_ I called him here so that I could dump him face-to-face! So that he would leave me alone!"

No matter how loud Emma Swan thought she was being, Neal Cassidy knew he could be louder. And if she wanted to go down the road of verbal abuse, he was _game_.

"You had a whole week to do that, and you call him here _tonight_?" he yelled, and the veins in his forehead threatened to burst. "Tell me again who is _fucking retarded_!"

Now she was the one who looked positively pissed. Her mouth hung open, and for a moment, he thought she was going to slap him across the face.

Instead, she pulled him closer and shoved her tongue past his lips.

And although that was not exactly what he was expecting, her kisses were always something he looked very much forward to, even when she was clearly intent on making his lips bleed as she bit him, her hands pulling at his hair frantically as she rubbed her body against his.

As to not disappoint her, he bit her back, but obviously not as hard as she was biting him. And then, although they both had their eyes tightly shut, she would sense his agony and replace her teeth with her tongue, licking his lip softly as if to numb the pain for a brief moment before sinking her teeth in again.

"Fuck, Emma…" he managed to moan, when she finally gave his throbbing lips a break.

"I guess… this is our… first fight as a couple," she panted into his mouth, still clutching at his hair.

He opened his eyes, and cupped the back of her head as his gaze danced over her face.

"I'm still angry."

"I know…" she whispered back.

He gritted his teeth when her lips moved to his neck, and his hands closed around the rim of her dress. He honestly felt it wouldn't take much for him to tear the whole garment apart, given the explosive mixture of lust and anger that was bubbling in his veins. But then, they would end up in the couch, again. Or, as it was, on the carpet.

Maybe they could, for once, make that little extra effort to get to the bedroom.

And so, he grabbed her arms just when she had managed to undo the first three buttons of his shirt, and forced her to walk backwards until her legs hit the sofa and she fell onto it, sitting. He tilted his head upwards, gazing down at her with what he could only imagine was his most deranged look.

At the end of the day, it was her fault that he was not thinking straight. Things had gone out of control far too fast for him to keep track of where his emotions were taking him. All he knew was that he had unbuckled his belt and pulled it off, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Oh no, you wouldn't," Emma gasped, her eyes wide as he snapped the belt in his hands.

"Oh yeah…" he replied, although he was not sure what she was talking about. He was not even sure as to what he would do with that belt, either. Still, he licked his bottom lip and decided to play along, taking a step forward. "I _will._"

"Only if you catch me first."

With that, Emma climbed over the sofa and attempted to make a run for her money – something she would have clearly succeeded in if it weren't for the fact that one of the buckles of her boot had gotten caught in the slipcover, causing her to crash onto the floor with a loud thud.

"Oh, Jesus, Emma!"

Before he knew, he was kneeling next to her, his belt long forgotten behind him.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

She turned her head to look at him with a mixture of pain and surprise.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she whispered. "I just hit my knee."

"I'm sorry…" he muttered, with a worried look on his face. "I'll go get some ice."

Neal Cassidy and his surprises. She tilted her head to gaze at him, and a smile lit her face. One second ago, he looked like he was about to give her the spanking of her life with that belt… or even choke her with it. Now, he couldn't look more concerned with the fact she had bruised her knee.

"What?" he asked.

"Is that how you intend to punish me?" she asked, smiling as he gently rubbed her knee. "By taking care of me?"

"I will always take care of you."

The words had left his lips before he could even think about what he was saying. But, in the end, it was the truth. He saw her mouth do that funny thing of its own again, and once again he was sold. One second ago, she was this fiery warrior that could have easily tackled him if she had wanted to. Now, she looked like a girl again, vulnerable and fragile.

"I love you," he whispered.

He watched as her eyebrows went up for a fraction of a second, before her lips curled upwards.

"I love you, too."

He let out a sigh of relief. No matter how much he had seen that moment in his head, to hear her actually say it made his chest swell with joy. He loved her. _She loved him too_.

He brought her lips to his, and his hand slowly moved from her knee to her thigh. He felt her shudder under his touch, her legs parting to accommodate him as he covered her body with his. And so, they would end up doing it on the floor, in the living room, again. That sofa had to have some sort of magnet that kept pulling them to it: they were fated to either go at it on top of it, or behind it, apparently.

Her fingers swiftly undid the rest of the buttons of his shirt, and in a matter of seconds she was tossing it off his shoulders, her nails grazing his back as his tongue delved into her mouth, eliciting moans every time he pushed his hips against her groin.

As she unzipped his jeans, he lifted his body from hers for a second and stretched his neck to look over the sofa, in order to locate the candy jar where he kept the condoms.

At that moment, the smell of something burning filled his nostrils, and his eyes went wide when he realized there was smoke coming from the kitchen.

"FUCK!"

He sprung to his feet and ran, aware that Emma had already pulled his fully erect cock out of his jeans and boxers, but way too worried about setting her apartment on fire to actually care.

As soon as he reached the oven, he grabbed a dishcloth and pulled out a tray full of cheese breadsticks that now looked like burning pieces of charcoal, and threw them on the sink.

When Emma joined him in the kitchen, she found him shaking his head, with both of his hands sprawled over the counter as the muscles in his shoulders tensed.

"I can't believe it…" he muttered. "I swear… I planned this night in my head over and over again…"

She chuckled, moving over to hug him from behind.

"It's gonna be fine, Neal," she said, kissing his shoulder with a smile. He looked so frustrated with how things were going… and she found it truly endearing. It only showed how much thought he had put into the whole thing, and she was grateful for that.

Still, even if everything went wrong… That was already the best night of her life.

"Why don't you grab the bottle of champagne that is chilling in the fridge…" she whispered, running her hands down his chest until she reached his deflating cock, and gave it a couple of strokes. "A bucket of ice… Then meet me in the bedroom… so that we can pick up from where we stopped?"

He broke into a fit of laughter at her words.

"Oh, Emma…" he said at last, finally turning around to look at her.

"Think about it," she replied, as her hands rested on his chest. "At least we'll have the best stories to remember when we grow old."

He closed his eyes, still shaking his head as she kissed his forehead and walked away.

Bless that woman for her sense of humor.

He was honestly beginning to doubt he would be able to deliver all the carnal delight he had envisioned for that night. First, it had been Graham showing up. Then, Emma's minor injury after his belt performance. Now, the breadstick incident. No wonder his Penetrating Warrior looked so… _defeated_. _'What's next?'_ he would probably be wondering, if he had been given the ability to think. _'Dipping me in the ice bucket?'_

Neal shivered at the thought. Lucky as he was…

_'Improvise, my friend. Improvise,'_ his mind whispered, trying to cheer him up. So what if his plans for the night were slowly going down the drain? Emma Swan was still waiting for him in her bedroom, and he was sure there was still plenty to be done… All he had to do was get his act together.

He grabbed the bottle of champagne from the fridge after zipping up his pants, and not without a certain amount of fear, filled a stainless steel bucket with ice and headed to the bedroom.

"Emma?" he muttered, looking around the dimly-lit room. He placed the bucket and the bottle on one of the bedside tables, and took off his shoes and socks before heading back to the door to turn on the lights.

Just then, Emma caught up with him, after coming out from behind the door, and blindfolded him.

"What th-"

"Have I ever told you how much I love your scarves?" she asked, holding his hands and leading him to a chair near the bed.

"Scarf," he corrected. "Singular. I only have one."

He heard her giggle, and an instant later the back of his knees connected with the chair.

"Well then… you look good with a scarf," she whispered.

"Wrapped around my head?" he asked, still finding her method very amusing. "I'm sure I do."

"Sit down."

Now that was an unexpected turn of events.

"I thought I would be the one calling the shots tonight," he whispered, after taking a seat.

"Oh, _you are_ the one calling the shots tonight," she replied, and Neal could almost see the smile on her face through her tone of voice. "Just tell me to stop what I'm doing and I will."

He swallowed when he felt her legs rest over his on the chair. 'You are the one calling the shots', she said.

_'Calling the shots my ass…'_ his mind pointed out. _'But please, don't stop…'_

"Emma…"

"Hmmm?"

"Are you really giving me a lap dance?" he asked, his hands going up and down her waist as she moved her hips to the very low sound of music playing somewhere behind them.

"Yes, I am."

"And I won't be able to see it?"

"Stop whining."

He chuckled, and bit his lip. Now that kind of thing only happened to him. He understood that she was trying to get him to use his other senses, but he truly wondered how much of her dance he would be able to enjoy with his mouth, ears or… nose.

She did smell good, for one thing… and at least he could still use his hands.

"What are you wearing?" he asked, his fingertips trying to define what her garment consisted of.

And then, without a word, she stepped away from him. Had he broken some kind of spoken rule? Maybe he was not supposed to touch her, after all.

"Emma?"

When she straddled him again, he kept his hands on the chair, and by now he could feel her hair falling over his shoulder as she leaned towards him. When her nipples brushed against his bare chest, his mouth went dry. There was the answer to his question. What was she wearing? Now, apparently _nothing._

He wished he was wearing nothing as well. At least he would be able to tell if she still had her panties on. But the fact she was grinding her hips against his jeans didn't exactly allow him to tell much, and he felt the urge to touch her legs, her hips, her sex… if only to find out if she was wearing anything at all. His cock couldn't agree more: they had to know, if only to produce the adequate mental image they needed to keep that party rolling.

"C-Can I touch you?" he stuttered.

So much for the 'calling all the shots' part of their deal. He was the one blindfolded and writhing on a chair. Obviously he was not in charge of anything.

"Can you wait?" she purred back, and he couldn't help but groan.

His misery seemed to draw some compassion from her, and she finally lowered her mouth to his, teasing him with her tongue, which slid in and out of his mouth a couple of times until they finally engaged in a hot, wet kiss.

"Holy shit…" he whispered, feeling her mouth moving down his neck, her tongue leaving a wet trail across his chest until her lips were wrapped around his nipple, her mouth sucking it lightly. Her hands were on his crotch… moving up and down, feeling his length through his jeans. By the time she finally unzipped him and once again fished his erection from inside his boxers, he was already breaking into a sweat.

Again, he wished he could see the look on her face as she stroked his cock and kissed his stomach, her moist lips making his skin tingle. And then, as if he had not been tortured enough yet, he felt her lips brush against his glans, and then the tip of her tongue, and then nothing but her warm breath as her nails grazed his waist.

"Emma… please..."

She was probably laughing at his piteous whimper, and he couldn't possibly care less, as long as it resulted in her taking him in her mouth. When it finally did, his nails dug into the chair so hard he was almost sure he would be able to etch his initials on it if she kept going for much longer.

He rocked his hips to match her motions, feeling his cock slide in and out of her mouth, her tongue lashing it as she sucked, pulling him even deeper, closer to her throat. Her hands caressed his sides, and since he could not rely on his sight, his ears seemed to make up for it by amplifying every moan that left her throat and his, his heavy breathing, the slurping sounds she made as she sucked him.

It was time to put his self-control to the test. He drew in a long, deep breath, concentrating on what his body was doing, and soon enough realized he wouldn't last much longer if she kept that pace.

"Emma… wait…"

"Why?"

"I don't… I don't wanna come yet."

He heard her chuckle, and then felt her lips press against his.

"I can wait twenty minutes," she whispered, and he had to smile. He had called it, the day they played that game. He knew she wanted to see him come more than once.

So did he. Just, not yet.

"Good to know," he whispered back, as she finally grabbed his hands and placed them over her breasts.

"Tell me something…" she said, closing her eyes as his fingers danced around her nipples. "Why are you so quiet?"

If there was one thing Emma Swan had grown used to, it was to hearing Neal talk. And tease. And then talk more. Including during sex.

"Is that a problem?" he asked.

"Not a problem…" she replied, as his lips replaced one of his hands and he gently sucked at her nipple, sending a wave of pleasure across her body. "Only… _unusual._"

"You saying I talk too much?"

"Maybe… But I like it when you talk."

"About what?" he asked, as his mouth moved to her other nipple, and he flicked his tongue against it, again making her eyes roll back in her head.

"About… _everything,_" she hissed, her hands grabbing his head and pulling him closer to her chest.

"Oh, really?"

"Uh-hum."

"Good…"

And then, he was silent again, but she wouldn't give up.

"So?" she asked.

"Say it."

Maybe it was time for him to take some control of the situation. He was still blindfolded and she was still the one dealing the cards, but at least he could tease her as well.

"What?"

"That I turn you on," he whispered.

He felt her lift her body from his for a moment, only to grab his hand and place it between her legs.

A moan left his throat when his fingers made contact with her slippery folds.

"Yeah…" she purred, rocking her hips against his hand and causing one of his fingers to slip into her hole. "You turn me on."

His voice had disappeared somewhere between his throat and his mouth as he fingered her, his cock twitching against his belly as he felt her sex quiver under his touch.

"I touch myself… thinking of you…" she whispered, breathing heavily after each word.

"Doing what?" he managed to ask, after he found his voice again.

She got closer to his ear, and bit his earlobe before replying.

"Going down on me."

"Emma…"

"Until I come in your mouth."

A drop of sweat ran down his temple, and he could feel she was way too aroused for her own sake to keep that little game going.

"Let me look at you."

And this time, he was not asking.

She removed the scarf from around his head, and only now did he realize how much that thing had made him sweat.

"Next time, can I ask you not to use wool in your ministrations?" he whispered, seeing her smile as she wiped the sweat from his forehead and played with his damp hair. "It felt like my head was stuck in an oven."

Then, it was his turn to chuckle as well, eyeing her face as she flung her arms around his neck.

"My God…" he muttered, as his eyes darted from her hair to her eyes, and then to her lips. It was the first time he was seeing her without her glasses and with her hair down. "You're gorgeous, you know that?"

And then, they kissed again, and he took that moment to wrap her legs around his waist and rise from the chair, carrying her to the bed and laying her down near its edge.

He spent very a very long minute letting his eyes take her figure in as she lay on the bed, her body completely exposed to him. Then, he slowly placed his body over hers, still wearing pants although his cock had already been released from their constraints. As it glided along her stomach, it left a trail of precum on her skin while he moved upwards to touch her face, pressing very light kisses along her jaw line, and then on her collarbone. He then shifted his body so that he was lying by her side, and his fingertips massaged her scalp, while his other hand smeared his precum on her abs. His mouth was a mere inch from hers as he breathed softly over her lips, watching his hand travel south, stopping shortly before it reached her mons.

"The scalp… the abs… the mons…" he whispered, with a smile on his face. "What was the other one, again?"

She opened her eyes for a moment, her skin covered in goose bumps as his fingertips danced across her body.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

And it was the truth. Her mind had momentarily lost all ability to think straight, and all she wanted was Neal to address the pressing matter between her legs. She felt she was on fire, and that he was deliberately avoiding touching her down there. So, that was what he had felt like moments ago. Very educational. She would bear that in mind next time they played, and maybe she wouldn't be that cruel.

She had opened her eyes to watch his slow descent towards her sex… but again, he had taken a detour, his lips going from her mons to the inside of her thighs, his cheek brushing slightly against her folds and making quiver in anticipation.

"Neal… _please…_"

He raised his eyes to hers, and she saw a smile curling his lips. What a vengeful man! She had learnt her lesson. She now knew what it was like to be teased relentlessly… He could move on to the next stage.

And he did.

When the tip of his tongue touched her labia, she gasped, and her whole body went stiff.

_It was really happening._

"Emma?" he whispered. "You okay?"

"Y-Yeah," she replied, her heartbeat racing. "Sorry."

He smiled again, and with his eyes still glued to hers, he once again covered her sex with his mouth, breathing onto it before licking its outer folds with one long, wet stroke.

Again, she couldn't help but clench her legs, gritting her teeth as her mind decided to go back to work, filling her head with the most stupid concerns. As she stared at the ceiling, she realized that giving head was one thing. She was the one in control. But that… that was exposing herself in a whole new level. It meant letting go… and letting herself be completely at his mercy.

And she had no idea how to do that.

When she shifted her glance to him, she saw he was resting his chin over her belly, slowly caressing her thighs as he looked at her face.

"I'm… I'm sorry," she said, feeling she had blushed at the imminent fiasco as the recipient of his oral ministrations. "I… I've never done this before."

Neal raised his eyebrows at her words, unable to hide his surprise.

"You serious?"

"Yup."

He thought of a million jokes he could make about all the other men she had gone to bed with, but after seeing the embarrassment on her face, his heart skipped a beat.

She looked scared.

"We don't have to do this if you don't want to, Emma."

"But I…" she said, blushing even more as she spoke. "I want to. I just… I…"

He lifted his body and leaned over her, his hand touching her face as his mouth covered hers in a warm, loving kiss. His tongue had slid past her lips, slowly exploring her mouth, trying to calm her nerves. In a way, it was funny that she was so worried about the whole thing. He wondered what was going on in her mind, what kinds of concerns she actually had.

Right now, all he could do was try to kiss them away.

When he broke the kiss and opened his eyes to look at her again, she seemed a little more relaxed. He smiled, and then proceeded to kiss her breasts and stomach, until he was again lodged between her legs.

"May I go on now, mademoiselle?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he pretended to be twirling an imaginary mustache, with a smug look on his face.

_The idiot._ She burst into laughter as he placed her thighs over his shoulders, pulling her body towards the edge of the bed as he kneeled on the floor. She propped herself on her elbows, and as it was, she could see everything he was doing with even more clarity.

"Oui, Monsieur," she replied, biting her lip as she watched his fingers gently touch her folds.

"Merci," he whispered, before his lips were once again doing their job.

She closed her eyes, and shut her mind to everything else but the warmth of his breath invading her intimacy, his tongue gently flicking around her inner lips after his fingers had pulled them apart. And then, her muscles clenched when he finally drew his attention to her clit, licking it slowly at first, then applying more pressure as he started sucking on it.

Her whole body seemed to irradiate electricity as waves of pleasure hit her, and she didn't even bother to stifle the moans leaving her throat. She felt she was sweating, and shaking, and every time he changed his pace from slow to fast, and then from intense sucking to soft nibbling, her hips would involuntarily buck forward, trying to increase contact with his face.

"Yeah, baby…" he moaned, slipping a finger inside her before licking her clit again. "Open up to me…"

He knew she was getting close. As his tongue danced around her folds, he could sense her muscles clench more insistently, and that her breathing was growing erratic.

"Oh fuck, Neal… Oh God…"

He flicked his tongue one last time across her slit, and she pulled her body forward, grabbing his head with her both hands as she cried her release. He kept his mouth in place, lapping her juices, feeling her sex undulate as orgasm ripped through her body.

She felt her heart was about to burst from her chest, her legs shaking uncontrollably as she struggled not to fall from the bed. When her body finally seemed to stop twitching, Neal let her legs down, and rose to his feet to finally get rid of his jeans and boxers. As his hand slid up and down his cock, he was relieved to realize he had managed not to come – something he felt he had been very close to doing while Emma came in his mouth.

"Condom," he whispered, wiping away the sweat from his forehead and smiling as he caught his breath.

He blinked, trying to focus again after his sight had blurred for a second. Now he remembered: he hadn't had lunch. Or dinner, thanks to the breadsticks mishap. What a brilliant idea, to engage in a marathon of sex with an empty stomach!

In the meantime, Emma had handed him the condom, and was now reaching out for the bottle of champagne.

"Love, I don't think I'll join you," he said, casting a quick glance towards her as he broke the packet with his teeth. "I might pass out if I drink."

Emma tilted her head as she popped the bottle open.

"You? You're kidding."

"Honest."

"Wow," she whispered, before taking a swig from the bottle. "Have you eaten, at least?"

He licked his lips, and tried not to laugh as he raised his eyebrows at her question.

"Oh, you!" she exclaimed, gently poking his thigh with her foot after she finally realized what had crossed his mind.

"Other than that, no," he replied, with a sly smile on his face as he positioned himself between her legs. "I'm afraid I'm running low on fuel, baby."

"Oh, Neal…"

"But I can make it," he replied, winking at her.

"Well, at least have some water, then," she said, giving him a bottle of water as she shifted her hips to accommodate his body. "I don't want you to dehydrate."

"How very kind of you," he said, drinking half of the bottle before getting rid of it and turning his attention to her body again. "You ready?"

"Always."

He pushed himself inside her, all the way to the hilt, sliding in easily after the little work out she had gotten minutes before. His eyes fluttered closed, and it took him all the strength he had not to let himself fall over the edge. After seven days of waiting… he was back inside her, her warmth making him shudder, her muscles tightening around his shaft.

He pressed the palms of his hands against the back of her thighs and bent them towards her body, allowing him to penetrate her even deeper. A throaty moan escaped his throat when she tilted her hips upwards to meet his thrusts, holding his arm with one hand as the other reached for his butt, trying to bring him even closer.

Not that it was remotely possible, at this point, for him to be any closer to her as he already was.

Her eyes were closed, and he couldn't help but stare at her parted lips. When temptation got the best out of him, he lowered his body onto hers and caught her mouth in his, sucking her lips, covering her tongue with his.

"Fuck…" he moaned, feeling he was, again, too close.

When he withdrew from her, she opened her eyes, looking at him with a question on her face.

"Sorry, baby," he whispered, replacing his cock with his fingers as he touched her folds, rubbing her clit with his thumb as two fingers slid in and out of her. "I just need to slow it down for a while."

He was out of breath, and every fiber of his being cried for release. The waves of pleasure sweeping his body were overwhelming, but he would not let himself come… not yet.

"You're crazy," she hissed.

"I know. I just want it to last."

She shook her head, and would honestly make an official complaint for his abrupt change of pace if only he had missed the spot, which was clearly not the case. His fingers, just like all the other parts of him that he was using to pleasure her, pushed all the right buttons in her body.

"I want you… inside me…" she whispered, her breath coming in short gasps as she neared another orgasm. "Neal…"

He rolled her on her stomach and lifted her hips, so that he could enter her from behind. That was it. His final round. He doubted he would be able to hold back his climax a third time, so he'd better go out with a bang.

Even because, after he did, chances were he would be out of commission for much more than twenty minutes.

He grabbed a handful of her hair as he thrust into her, one of his hands still rubbing her clit. By now, his whole body was covered in sweat, and his muscles were starting to burn. He had no idea how long they had been going at it, but he knew it had been long enough for Emma to find her way into another mind-blowing orgasm.

"Fuck!"

Her hands clenched into fists as she cursed, her whole body shaking again. He bit her shoulder, feeling his own blood boil as he reached his peak. With a final jerk forward, he felt he had reached the point of no return.

He couldn't stop it now.

"Neal?" Emma panted, feeling he had stop moving, his nails digging into her hips.

"E-Emma… I'm… I'm…"

"Cum in my chest," she whispered, disengaging herself from him and rolling on her back.

He barely had time to tear away the condom from his cock before it started twitching, each spurt eliciting a grunt from the depths of his chest. He felt like crying, and laughing, and screaming, and in time he ended up doing all three things. He had managed to miss her chest a good half of the times, and now that he had finally managed to open his eyes, he could see she had his semen splattered across her face, her shoulders, and even her hair.

Still, she had a very content smile on her lips.

And that was the last thing he saw before he passed out.


	11. Chapter 11: Can't get enough of you

**A/N: MissiB, Kellyann211, Sarahmay, maressaonce, Fire, Meresger, Sudoku, Guest : after I published the previous chapter and almost drowned in the sea of porn that continues in this one, seeing your reviews gave me extra energy to go on. THANK YOU!**

**Some warnings: long chapter, very detailed. I dropped some hints as to what they would be doing in previous chapters, so I hope you will all be fine. XD Meresger, after your comment about Entourage, I couldn't help myself, so… I hope you enjoy the little references I make somewhere in this chapter.**

**In time: the night goes on, because Neal Cassidy is still very, very aroused, and Emma Swan is not about to let him down anytime soon. Must be the hormones. It is, as I promised, straight on 'til morning… which translates into 'this chapter is exclusively made up of two people having sex'. If you expect any significant plot developments, wait for next chapter, when Neal's life takes a turn for the worse. That is it, folks: next chapter, angst begins, so enjoy all the fun while it lasts!**

* * *

**Chapter 11: Can't get enough of you**

"Neal… Wake up."

He knew Emma was talking to him, but he didn't want to open his eyes.

"Neal…" she whispered again, but this time, shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, come on."

"No…"

"You have to… I brought you some food."

He scrunched up his face, and finally lifted his head from the pillow to look at her.

"What time is it?"

"Almost four."

"Four?" he complained, and then let his head fall back onto the pillow. "How long have I been asleep?"

"One hour."

"_One hour?"_

Once again, he groaned, his hand hiding under the pillow by his side as he lay on his stomach.

"You have to eat something."

He turned his head to look at her, although he could barely stand to keep his eyes open.

"Can't it wait?"

"And take a shower."

"Can't it wait?"

"Your head is bleeding."

"What?"

That word did the trick. _Bleeding?_ He brought himself to a sitting position, maybe a bit faster than he could afford to without feeling dizzy, and searched his head for any injuries. When his fingers grazed his scalp a few inches above his left ear, he winced.

"The hell?"

"You hit your head on the corner of the nightstand when you passed out…" Emma said, rubbing his thigh as she kneeled next to him on the bed. "I guess I could stop the bleeding, but your hair is a mess…"

And it was, indeed. His fingertips could barely reach past the layer of hair that seemed to be matted with his own blood.

"I don't think it is too big of a cut, but still… you scared the bejesus out of me."

Judging by the spots of blood on his pillow, and on the bed sheets, she had had reason to freak out.

"Never a dull moment, huh?" he winked, trying to ignore the dull ache on his head and he slid his hand up her thigh.

"Never…" she whispered, pressing her forehead against his, with a wide grin on her face. "Now eat."

Without further notice, she shoved a slice of apple past his lips.

"What did you bring me?" he asked, chewing the apple as his eyes tried to see what was on the tray behind her.

"Fruit, cheese…" she stretched her arm to grab a dish behind her. "And peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

"Strawberry jelly?" he asked, and his eyes seemed to smile as he looked at the plate.

"Uh-hum," she nodded, after taking a bite of one of them.

His favorite. He had to bite his tongue not to propose there and then. Under any other circumstances, he would certainly do so, if only to see her gasp and punch him away. But after everything that had already happened that night, he felt he was already too close to scaring her away.

"Can't believe I'm having a snack in bed at four in the morning…" he muttered, glancing at her with a smile. "I have a job interview tomorrow at ten, did you know that?"

Her jaw dropped slightly.

"Shut up!" she whispered. "You mean… tomorrow, tomorrow, or tomorrow… _today?_"

"Today," he replied, picking up a sandwich as well. "In exact six hours."

"Neal… Why didn't you say something?"

"Maybe I got sidetracked by Graham showing up…"

He raised his eyebrows as he ate, staring into her eyes long enough to see she had blushed a little at the reminder.

"You're not letting go, are you?"

As she spoke, she reached behind him to grab the bottle of champagne.

"Never," he answered, trying to keep himself from chuckling when he looked at her again. "Another thing I'll add to the list of your inexcusable behaviors."

"Oh my, do we have a list already?" she said, taking a swig from the bottle and then wiping her mouth on her arm.

"We do," he replied, taking the bottle from her hand and gulping down a few inches of the champagne. "In case you don't remember, you've put me through a lot so far..."

She let her mind go back to their first days together, and everything that had followed… The first time she had told him about Graham, then the night he had offered his shoulder for her to cry on, just for her to pass out on him… then the challenge, and Graham again…

He was right. She had, indeed, tested his patience in far too many occasions.

"I bought a suit, you know?" he whispered, studying her face after the long minute she stayed silent, lost in her own thoughts.

"Oh, no way!" she replied, her eyes wide at his words. "You're kidding!"

"Seriously. A four-piece suit."

He wiggled his eyebrows. Now, it had been a really long time since he last wore one of those, but after working as a _maid_ for that long, he had at least managed to scrape up the money to get back on the game: he couldn't show up for that interview wearing jeans and a T-shirt, no matter how comfortable he had gotten with that particular attire.

"Does that mean I'll get to see you wearing it in a few hours?"

"You will, indeed," he answered, returning her smile with an even wider grin as he kissed her lips. "Question is, what you wanna do 'til then…"

He let his hand slide up her inner thigh as his mouth moved over to her neck.

"Are you sure you're ready to go again?" she whispered.

"Are you really asking me that? After everything you've done?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He felt her hand go up his thigh as well, and rest a mere inch away from his crotch. _That woman. _He was probably going to fail miserably at his job interview, since that one hour in which Emma had let him sleep was likely to be the only sleep he would get that night at all.

"Really?" he said, his hand going further up her thigh, making her jump lightly at his touch. "Because waking me up in the middle of the night to feed me was a bit obvious, don't you think?"

She bit her lip as she felt his fingers graze the sensitive skin right below her mons, and shifted her legs so that she was straddling one of his thighs.

"I woke you up because I was worried."

"Liar…" he moaned, closing his eyes when she rubbed herself gently against his leg. "You woke me up because you wanted more."

Her lips were now on his neck, and he felt the usual shivers run up and down his spine when her tongue flicked against his skin, his cock hardening against her thigh.

"I have to warn you, though…" she whispered in his ear, when his hands undid the belt of her silk robe. "I'm a little sticky… haven't showered yet."

"Sticky, huh? I wonder why…" he replied, as his hands closed around her breasts, still hidden from his eyes by the robe. "Is that what you were wearing when you blindfolded me?"

"Like it?"

"Pretty… very pretty…"

He then peeled the robe off her shoulders and buried his head between her shoulder and her neck, biting her skin, then soothing it with kisses, feeling her hands wrap around his neck to pull him closer.

"Shower," she whispered.

"No."

"Yes."

"No…"

She could feel her wetness on his thigh, and all he wanted was to slip inside her, to feel her tight walls wrapped around him… The shower could wait.

"Yes."

He let out a sigh when she disengaged herself from him, put the robe back on and got off the bed, heading to the bathroom.

_There was no point arguing with Emma Swan._

He let his body fall onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling and taking all the time he could before he got to his feet. When he did, his muscles reminded him that he was no athlete, and that therefore no marathon, of any kind, any length or level of difficulty, should be taken lightly by him – at the risk of him being rendered useless the next day.

Or the _next round_, as it was.

After drinking another bottle of water, he held one of his wrists behind his back and stretched, wincing at how poorly his whole body seemed to be taking to the idea of walking, let alone engaging in another round of lovemaking. But then, that was the same body – and mind – that had been intent on penetrating Emma only a minute ago.

_Such a conflict of interests. _

Hopefully, his stamina would not let him down, he thought, with his eyes closed, as he dragged himself to the bathroom. When he glanced down at himself, though, he realized that _'down'_ was not a fitting word at the moment, on the very contrary. His body was ready – and _very ready_, at that – for whatever it was Emma Swan had in mind.

Which, apparently, had something to do with a bath.

"I thought you had said 'shower'," he whispered, leaning against the doorframe and watching her as she sat on the edge of the bathtub to drop some kind of oil into the water.

"We _are _taking a shower…" she replied, barely bothering to look at him. "Only, not now."

Saving further explanations for later, she got rid of her robe and entered the bathtub, disappearing under the water only to emerge a second later, wiping her eyes and smiling at him.

"But I guess that a warm bath will ease tired muscles," she said, biting her lip as she leaned back and rested her head.

"Who said my muscles are tired?" he asked with a frown, ignoring the cramps on his calves as he walked towards her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, with another sly smile spread across her face when she leaned against the edge of the tub, crossing her arms as she looked up at him. "I was talking about _my_ muscles."

"Pff…" he snorted, raising an eyebrow. "I expected more from you, Ms. Swan."

He lowered his head to catch her lips in his, and let her tongue slide into his mouth for a quick, wet kiss before entering the tub himself and lodging himself behind her.

"O-OK…" he stuttered, chuckling as soon as he felt his body surrounded by warmth. "Maybe… just maybe… I really needed this."

Emma simply snuggled against his chest and smiled as his arm encircled her waist and pulled her closer to him.

"This is good, isn't it?"

"It sure is," he whispered, closing his eyes as the scent of rosemary and lavender filled his nostrils. "We should do this more often."

His voice was sleepy when he replied, and as he did, he saw Emma cover her mouth to stifle a yawn. If they didn't watch out, they would both fall asleep and drown in that bathtub.

"So… tell me more about this job you're interviewing for."

"It's a nonprofit… They are looking for a compliance specialist."

"Nonprofit?" she asked. "Does that mean you're not getting paid?"

He chuckled as his lips moved along her shoulder.

"Well, no, not exactly…" he replied. "I'll be working as a volunteer for the first month… but then, if they decide to keep me, I'll be in the payroll…"

"Of course they will want to keep you…"

He felt her fingertips going up his arm, and smiled. He had not even interviewed for the job yet, and there he was, talking about being in the payroll.

"But first I have to survive the interview…" he said, his hand going down her stomach under the water. "And given the fact someone did not let me sleep tonight…"

"Oh, stop whining…" she replied, opening her legs slightly when his fingers spread her lips apart, one of his digits rubbing softly against her entrance. His touch, combined with the warm water caressing her skin, made her shudder, and she had to clutch the edge of the bathtub to steady herself when his mouth moved back to her neck, adding to the pleasure sweeping her body.

"Neal…"

He felt his fingers encircling her clit as his other hand fondled her breast. Her breath caught in her throat when his cock stirred against her back, and not for the first time that night she was consumed with a blinding need to feel him inside her… though now that she thought about it, it would be a shame if he stopped what he was doing… That man and his skilled hands would be the end of her.

She arched her back, and her arm reached behind her to hold his head as he sucked on her neck. It was true, it was her fault that he was not getting any sleep that night. But then, it was also true that she would probably have a hard time walking when he was done with her, so at the end of the day, they were even.

"Get up," he whispered, and his voice was so filled with lust that it made her muscles clench with anticipation.

When she stood up, she turned around to look at his face, and saw him licking his lips as he stared at her.

"Come here."

"Here where?" she asked, but before she got an answer, he grabbed her leg and lifted it slightly, so that one of her feet rested on the edge of the bathtub while the other remained lodged between his legs.

"Here," he replied, sitting straight and looking up at her as he held her hips and lowered her body onto his mouth.

"Oh, fuck…" she moaned, as soon as he felt his breath on her inner thighs.

Her legs shook lightly when his tongue covered her outer lips, coating them with his saliva. She tasted of lavender with a hint of rosemary, and she was hot, moist, and he could see her hands moving around her stomach to spread the drops of water rolling down her body before it reached his mouth.

His eyes locked with hers as he licked her slowly, with broad, wet strokes, until her lips parted to grant him further access to her sex. Her eyes fluttered closed, and when her head fell back slightly, it was the encouragement he needed to go down on her with even more eagerness, sucking lightly on her folds and then harder, deliberately avoiding her bud as his tongue danced around her inner lips, spreading around her own juices, savoring them, letting them coat his tongue and mix with his saliva.

"Oh, shit… yeah…"

Her hands were now clutched in fists as she moaned louder, and after probing her dripping wet entrance with the tip of his tongue, he finally let it slide up to tease her clit, slowly, softly… until she was rocking her hips against his face, as if trying to get more friction.

"Fuck, Neal…"

"I love your taste..."

"Oh my God…"

He returned his attention to her bud, sucking it harder, licking it faster, his fingers digging into her hips until her clit disappeared under its hood and her hips jerked forward. Her whole body tensed up when she came, and he felt her knees falter as she cursed, her eyes still tightly closed.

He carefully lowered her body back into the water, bringing her mouth to his, kissing her deeply as she tried to catch her breath. Her arms rested lazily over his shoulders as she licked his mouth in between gasps, as if tasting herself on his lips.

"I want your cock," she whispered, her voice low and raspy.

"Good," he whispered back, with a smile. "He wants you too."

And then he kissed her again, shoving his tongue into her mouth and letting out a moan when her fingers wrapped over his as his hand moved up and down his shaft.

"Wanna go back to bed?" he asked, after she stood up again to pop the drain stopper up to empty the bathtub.

"No," she replied. "Do you?"

A wide grin spread across his face as he stood up as well.

"I don't even know why I asked…"

Her hands went up his chest until they reached his collarbone. He saw her bite her lip as her fingertips traced patterns over it, and then her eyes were back on his.

"We need a condom…" he whispered, as his hands cupped her breasts and the tip of his cock grazed her stomach. Yes, they needed a condom, but he was not remotely inclined to get out of that tub to get one from the drawer in the cupboard. He was actually hoping that one would magically levitate towards them, and if it didn't, then…

He saw Emma reach behind her to pick up a washcloth and a condom from the edge of the bathtub, and couldn't help but raise his eyebrows with a smile on his lips.

"You really thought this through, didn't you?" he muttered, as he dried himself and tore the packet with his teeth.

"You have no idea…" she whispered into his ear, her tongue sneaking out to tease him.

As if, at that point, he needed any more warming up. His cock was hard as steel, and it started oozing so much precum that for the first time he was actually having trouble putting a condom on.

"A little help?" he said with a whisper.

"With?"

Emma finally unglued her mouth from his ear, and saw him glancing down at his lap with a smirk. She took the condom from his hands, and kneeled in front of him as her fingers wrapped around his shaft.

"Wow…" she whispered, unable to stop a smile from curling her lips. "I guess I'm not the only one who's wet…"

He was about to respond to her taunt, but all words disappeared from his mind when she took him in her mouth and sucked his cock clean, rolling down the condom in a matter of seconds.

"The fuck?"

"Sorry," she laughed, getting back on her feet. "I thought you were done with foreplay."

"I-I…" he stuttered. "I'm never done with foreplay!"

Of course, he was only saying that for the sake of bickering. Given his very aroused state of mind, it was not as if he could afford to have her give him a full blowjob without reaching his peak faster than he wanted to, so at the end of the day she was right.

It was time to get down to business.

"Wanna do it standing?" he asked, kissing her mouth as his hand reached between her legs to probe her entrance.

"You're the one calling the shots."

"Your legs tired?"

When she shook her head, still kissing him, he turned her around and raised her arms so that her palms were pressed against the wall.

"Standing it is, then…" he whispered, as he flexed his knees and positioned himself at her entrance, pushing slowly into her.

"Oh yeah…" she moaned, her fingers curling into the tiles. "Fuck yeah…"

He breathed heavily onto her shoulder as he filled her, inch by inch, feeling her shift her feet and spread her legs wider to accommodate him. Then he started moving in and out, his forehead resting on her shoulder as he fondled her breasts, his fingertips playing with her nipples and feeling them harden at his touch.

"Fuck, Emma…"

His hands slid down to her hips as he started thrusting harder into her, his hips bucking against her butt and eliciting loud groans from both of them.

When one of his hands moved further down and touched her throbbing nub, she gasped, and threw her head back. He took that chance to catch her lips in his mouth, their tongues clashing as his damp chest rubbed against her shoulders.

"Neal…"

He felt one of her hands reach behind her and press against his hips as he thrust into her.

"Neal, wait."

"What?" he whispered, slightly out of breath.

"The lube… Take the lube…" she moaned in response. "Behind you…"

"Lube?"

"Yeah."

"But…"

He was about to say that she didn't actually need any more lube when he finally realized what she was talking about.

"Are you… are you sure?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Take the lube."

He swallowed, and slowly pulled out to turn around and grab the tube lying at the edge of the bathtub. His hands were shaky, partially due to the hormones flooding his bloodstream, but especially because he was not sure of _how to do what she expected him to do_. Technically, it was very simple. _Just slip it in_. Bow chicka wow wow. No rocket science. Just using _a different entry door_. But what if he did it wrong? Apparently, _there was_ a way of doing it wrong, given her lack of enthusiasm when she first brought up that topic.

"Neal?" her voice brought him back to reality. "What are you waiting for?"

"N-Nothing," he muttered, trying to hide his nervousness. "Just… appreciating the view."

Indeed, it was a nice view. She had bended her body in a way that made it very easy for him to penetrate her… wherever she wanted him to.

He was about to squeeze the lube on the tip of his cock when he realized, to his horror, that it was starting to lose some of its… _glory_.

"Oh crap!"

He quickly turned his back to Emma when she glanced at him from over her shoulder, his heartbeat racing at the impeding fiasco.

"Come on now…" he whispered, trying to bring his Penetrating Warrior back into the game as he jerked off furiously. "Come on…"

"Neal…" he jumped when Emma's hands touched his shoulders. "What's going on?"

"N-Nothing," he muttered, unsure as to whether or not he should keep wanking now that Emma had already seen his less than impressive half-erection.

"Neal, come on," she insisted, forcing him to turn around to look at her. "If you don't want to do it, it's-"

"I want to do it," he said, his eyes avoiding hers. "I just… I just want to do it _right._"

She smiled, and took his face in her hands to kiss his lips.

"Sorry, baby…" he whispered.

"Neal, stop!" she replied, kissing him even harder when he pouted. "You're ridiculous, you know that?"

He raised his eyes to hers, biting his lip.

She felt like laughing at all the drama he was making. But then, she suspected it wouldn't help their situation much if she did, so she simply kissed him again, her lips going from his mouth to his neck, biting him just above his collarbone and then going up again to whisper in his ear.

"You'll do it right if you just stop worrying," she said, as she led his hand to her still very moist, very ready folds. "And keep using your fingers…"

As she bit his earlobe, she saw, from the corner of her eye, that he was smiling again.

"You like that?" he asked, as he tickled her clit with the tip of a finger.

"Hell yeah," she moaned, rocking her hips onto his hand.

He felt her erect nipples brush against his chest, and lowered his mouth to suck on one of them as he slipped a finger into her hole. She grabbed his hair, and for a moment he was reminded of his injury, but did not complain. After flicking his tongue against her other nipple and giving it a gentle squeeze, he straightened his back and kissed her mouth again, grabbing her butt and bringing her closer so that she could feel his throbbing erection pressing against her stomach.

"Bend over," he whispered, and as she did so, he finally applied the lube to the tip of his cock, and then some on her ass.

He blinked, and swallowed as he prepared to enter her, steadying her hips with one of his hands as he slowly pushed in. He bit his lip at the resistance he was finding, wondering if he should push harder or wait until she loosened up.

He slid his hand over her hip to reach for her clit, playing with it as he kept pushing in… and then, before he could actually ask her if it was hurting, the head of his cock slipped inside, and he gasped.

"Holy fucking… shit…"

She gasped as well, but probably for a different reason.

"Emma?" he whispered, not moving for very long seconds. "You ok?"

"Y-Yeah," she muttered, and he wished she could see her face. "I'm fine."

He pushed an inch further, biting back the urge to shove it all in at once, waiting for her body to accommodate him. His fingers circled her inner lips, and every time he brushed against her clit, or teased her entrance, he realized her body would relax, allowing him to go deeper much more easily.

When he was all the way in, he took a moment to feel her tightness around him. She was breathing heavily just like him, her back covered by droplets of water falling from her wet hair.

"Is it hurting?" he asked, twisting a finger inside her, as he kissed the back oh her neck.

"No," she replied, slightly out of breath. "Oh God, don't stop."

He was almost sure they were not talking about the same thing, but then, it was probably his fault. He hadn't been very specific.

One way or another, at least now he felt he had been given the green light to proceed. He finally started moving, slowly withdrawing his shaft from her to plunge back in, his face contorted in pleasure as he groaned onto her shoulder.

At that point, whatever discomfort she had felt before didn't seem to be bothering her so much, so he increased his tempo, his thrusts becoming more urgent as climax built up. He couldn't help but notice, though, that the closer he got to his peak, the harder it was to coordinate his performance in two distinct fronts, to the point of completely forgetting to move the hand resting upon her folds as he thrust into her.

He blinked, and forced himself to concentrate on what he was doing. As soon as he resumed the pressure on her slick nub, he felt her juices coat his fingers as she arched her back, her sex quivering as her orgasm seemed to close in on her.

"Oh God, Neal... Please don't stop!" she cried.

He didn't, and when he used his other hand to probe her slick entrance with the tip of his fingers, she threw her head back, her mouth gaping open as her muscles clenched around him, puling him deeper into her.

"Emma... On my God…"

He felt his cock swell even more inside her, and it only took him one more thrust for him to grunt onto her shoulder, his whole body tensing up as he came.

He tried to phrase something coherent to say, but his mental faculties were definitely not to be trusted anymore. Instead, he used all the curse words he knew, and invented some of his own, his mouth glued to her back as his cock twitched inside her. Her knees buckled and she started falling; he would have pulled her up if only he had found the strength. Instead, he collapsed as well, although he could grab one of the handles in time to keep himself from crashing down on top of her. Still holding her waist, he eased her into the tub, and then let his own body fall by her side.

They remained silent for a very long minute, trying to catch their breath and waiting for their heart rate to go back to normal.

"I gotta say," Neal whispered, as he took off the condom before his very generous load started leaking out. "I still like your vagina better."

"Well… thank you?" Emma replied, her eyes a little vacant as she stared at the ceiling. "Speaking of which, you're a very… _handy _man," she added, raising her own hands in a rather clumsy move.

"If anything…" he said, as he stretched himself over her body to reach the opposite edge of the tub and deposit the used condom in the basket near the toilet, "… that was all due to your very clear instructions."

"Teamwork…" she whispered, sleepily.

"Yeah."

"But then you… you didn't like it?"

"Are you kidding?" he exclaimed, lying by her side again. "Of course I liked it… It felt fucking great," he whispered, biting his lip as one of his hands went up her thigh. "But being in two places at the same time… is too much to handle. And Emma…" he rested his head on his hand as he propped himself on his elbow. "There is no way it didn't hurt."

"It did not."

"Oh come on."

"It didn't, I just… It just feels like…" she put both of her hands on her face and stretched her skin with her fingers wide open. "You know…"

He couldn't believe his eyes as he watched Emma making faces as she tried to explain herself.

"Oh my God," he whispered, before bursting into laughter.

"Like everything is…" she muttered in the middle of her performance, "_…stretched_."

When Neal cackled at her last word, she laughed as well, and everything hurt, especially the part of her body that they were talking about.

"I'll be impressed if I'm still able to walk when all the adrenaline wears off," she whispered, wincing as she tried to bring herself to a more comfortable position by his side.

"Or sit," he added, wiping away happy tears.

"Or sit," she conceded, raising her eyebrows. "Thanks for reminding me."

"I'm sorry, baby."

He touched her thigh, and the look on his eyes was no longer of amusement, but of embarrassment.

"Nah, I'll be fine," she said, smiling at him reassuringly. Given the fact his Penetrating Warrior was way above other warriors when it came to size, she was actually impressed she hadn't cringed in pain during the whole thing. "But yeah… Next time we do it, we should have a couple of shots of vodka first."

"Many shots..." he chuckled.

"Yup."

He blinked, and let himself get lost in his own thoughts as he looked at her naked body. The way she had so eagerly taken him in every time they made love… the way his body just didn't seem to get enough of hers… They way his mind mapped her reactions to him, so that he could keep seeing them again even when she was not around…

He could stay in that bathtub for many more hours, despite the dull aches that were starting to spread through his muscles. If anything, just to keep listening to her voice as his fingertips grazed her thighs…

"I wonder what time it is…" he whispered, his sense of responsibility reminding him that he had somewhere else to be that day.

"I have no idea…"

"What time do you have to leave?"

"Leave?

"Yeah," he replied, as she tilted her head to look at him. "To work."

She smiled, her eyes avoiding his as she spoke again.

"You're probably gonna hate me for this, but…" she whispered, finally shifting her glance to his face, "I'm not going to work today."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah… I asked for a day off a week ago," she explained, trying not to laugh at his shocked expression.

"The day you proposed the challenge…" he muttered.

"Yup."

"And why would I hate you for that…" he went on, raising his eyebrows as he spoke. "Just because you get to stay home and rest… and recover… as you sleep soundly among very fluffy pillows and blankets… while I go on an interview that might last all morning… probably… some of the afternoon as well?"

She simply shrugged, a mix of sorrow and defiance showing on her face.

"And what was your excuse?" he asked.

"Not an excuse…" she replied, frowning. "Just the truth."

"The truth?"

"Yeah…" she smirked, her nails grazing his leg. "I told them I would need to… _take care_ of my boyfriend."

"And they fell for that?" he whispered, a sly smile curling his lips.

"I would say they understood me perfectly."

"You have very cool bosses, that's what…"

The two of them fell silent for a moment, just looking at each other as they smiled.

"So now I'm your boyfriend…"

"What? You thought you were what, my _maid_?" she replied, reminding him of his earlier tantrum.

"No, actually… I was thinking of 'sex slave'."

"Well, 'sex slave' falls under the 'boyfriend' category, in case you don't know."

"Is that so?"

"Among many other things."

He licked his lower lip as she stared into her hungry eyes, the familiar shivers going up and down his spine as she rose from the bathtub and moved towards him.

He should really get a grip on himself. At this point, it would not even be funny to get another erection. Or maybe it would. From his experience, he knew that the combination of an erection and Emma Swan always resulted in very interesting moments.

"My God, Neal," she whispered, glancing down at his lap. "You're hard _again?_"

Though now that he thought about it, he didn't remember going soft after their last round, to begin with. Technically, it was still the _same_ erection – a very brave one at that, to resist not only an orgasm, but also an extra round of conversation.

"Hey, it's all your fault!" he replied, trying not to smile as he ranted. "I don't even know what my body is doing anymore."

Actually, he knew. He knew very well what his body was doing, and that was the reason his eyes kept darting to very specific parts of her body as she stood before him.

"Come on," she said, offering a hand for him to get up. "Let's take care of your head."

He considered pointing out that there were other parts of his body he would like her to take care of first, but again, as she had done other times in the past, she delved into his mind and answered his unasked question.

"The one you hit on the nightstand, first."

She shook her head when he grinned at her, and as soon as her hand slid over the tap to start the shower and the cold water hit his back, the happy look on his face was replaced by a gasp.

"FUCK!"

"Oh my God Neal I'm sorry!" she said in a hurry, trying to regulate the water temperature as he writhed and cursed.

"If you wanted me to go soft," he panted, "you could have just said it!"

Indeed, nothing like freezing cold water running down one's back to ruin the mood… Granted: at least it had woken him up, and 'awake' was something he would need to be before he left that bathroom, anyway. But still… what a low blow. His resilient hard-on, the one he had been so proud of only a minute ago, had faded considerably.

"I'm sorry, baby…" she purred, pressing soft kisses on his lips. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Well," he said, letting out a sigh when the water finally got warmer. "That's one part of my body you won't have to deal with anymore…"

"If I know you…" she replied, her lips gliding along his wet collarbone, "… I am quite sure I will, sooner or later."

Her hands, in the meantime, had slid from his waist to his butt, and he felt her nails graze his skin as she spoke again.

"I just remembered that there is another _first _for you..."

He raised his eyebrows as he reached for the bottle of shampoo on a shelf behind her.

"Of course there is…" he whispered, feeling a delicious throbbing between his legs as her nails danced around his buttocks. "I'm going to wash your hair for the first time."

After saying that, he spread some of the shampoo on his hands and took them to her head.

"Oooh… very sexy," she replied, closing her eyes as he massaged her scalp. "But that was not what I had in mind…"

He swallowed when one of her hands slid further down until her fingertips rested on the space that separated his balls from his ass.

"If you're planning to show me how… it _feels_…" he muttered, feeling his body tingle as she kept stroking that very sensitive spot of his body. "I say, can I take a rain check?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I think I've had enough anal for today," he explained, his voice growing graver as pleasure coursed through his veins. "And I don't know if I'm ready to have it done… you know… _on me_."

She let out a chuckle, and her other hand moved from his butt to his fully erect cock.

"Still not what had in mind, but…" she purred into his ear, "…now that you said it that you're willing to give it a try…"

"I don't think I said that..."

"You kind of did...

"Oh man…"

He let out a groan when she started kissing his neck, pushing him a step backwards so that she was under the water to rinse off her hair. He took that chance to kiss her, paying no mind to all the water the two of them ended up swallowing in the process, his mouth eager to suck her tongue in, to lick her lips, to taste her. And then, he felt she was pulling him closer, and that he had replaced her spot under the water. When she kneeled in front of him, shielded from the water now that the strong jets were massaging his back, his cock twitched in anticipation. There was something enticing about the fact she was about to take him in her mouth again, and that at the end of that marathon it would mean that he had been inside her in all possible ways… and more than once.

She held the base of his shaft with her fingers as her tongue covered all his length, in very soft, very slow strokes, her eyes locking up with his as her other hand cupped his balls. And then, he felt her tongue traveling to the spot her fingers had been stroking minutes ago, and a little explosion of stars blinded him after she prodded it insistently, her lips sliding on to make contact with his balls.

He thought of saying something to show how much he was enjoying her ministrations, but when she took one of his balls into her mouth, he gave up. His mouth was hanging open as her hand kept sliding up and down his shaft, the waves of heat sweeping his body making his pulse race.

"You like it?" she asked, and all he could do was to moan in response.

He made a mental note to give her a much more appreciative answer later on, when he recovered his ability to speak.

She repeated the same procedure with his other testis, rolling it inside her mouth and sucking it softly. His knees faltered for a second, but he was quick to grab the handle by his side, and in a sharp moment of clarity, he finally understood what _first _she was talking about.

"Y-You know," he stuttered, the desire to tease her trumping his momentary lack of eloquence. "Just because… I didn't know… the word _teabagging_… does not mean… I've never had it done…to me…"

She immediately stopped what she was doing, her hand freezing halfway up his cock as her eyes shot up to him. Seeing he had succeeded, he let out a smirk.

"But for the record…" he panted, licking his lips. "I have not."

He saw her roll her eyes as she gave his balls a final lick.

"Fucking tease," she hissed. "Gotta give it to you though. You're bold, considering my teeth were so close to your sack."

He gasped at her comeback, and his cock throbbed even harder under her grasp. Good grief, he _was_ a pervert. What kind of man got that turned on by bantering with his girlfriend, even when she alluded to such a painful punishment?

Again, the babbling side of his mind was pushed aside by a much more primitive part of his brain, that simply made him jerk his hips forward, in silence, when she led his shaft into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it.

And then her lips were wrapped around his glans, sucking the drops of precum that had accumulated on his slit, kissing the area right behind the head. He wanted to close his eyes, and at the same time, he did not: the image of her head going up and down on him was way too pretty to pass up.

"Fuck, Emma…"

He saw her smile at his vocalization, as if she had been waiting to hear her name at some point. He wondered if she was aware that this time around he was likely to last much longer, since his body was still recovering from his previous orgasms and he was not likely to reach his peak anytime soon, despite all pleasure her mouth was giving him.

Luckily for him, whether she was aware of that or not, the fact was that she seemed rather intent on covering every inch of skin in his groin with her relentless wet kisses, and he was not about to complain. Or to speak, for that matter.

His loud moaning and the movement of his hips, though, were doing a good job congratulating her for her performance. Earlier than he imagined, he felt a surge in his balls, as she again flicked her tongue behind the tip of his cock, covering the sensitive spot with soft, wet kisses.

"Emma…" he moaned, grabbing a handful of her hair as his breathing got heavier. "I'm so close…"

She intensified her sucking, taking him further into her mouth, and when he felt his glans touch the back of her throat, he cried his release. His sight blurred as he watched her gulp down his semen, sucking on his cock until it stopped spurting. Only when Emma winced did he realize he had just yanked her hair, after a particularly violent contraction of his muscles.

"Sorry," he panted, letting go of her hair with an apologetic look on his eyes as he withdrew his penis from her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"That's fine…" she said, rising to her feet as she licked the remnants of his cum off her lips. "Sweet…" she whispered into his ear. "You really are a man of your word."

He laughed as he struggled to steady himself, his whole body shaking thanks to the aftershocks of his orgasm.

"Then the apples _do_ work," he managed to say, still trying to catch his breath.

"They do."

"Good to know…"

He pressed his forehead against hers, and let out a sigh.

"What were you saying about taking care of my wounded head first?" he asked, tilting his head upwards with that infamous smug look in his eyes.

_That man._

"You might have distracted me," she replied, shrugging at him as she reached for the bottle of shampoo. "Would you like to file a complaint?"

"I love you."

She nodded, grinning at him while she lathered his hair.

"That's what I thought."

He couldn't help but laugh at her witty responses, trying to remember if she had always been that sassy, or if his swagger was rubbing off on her.

Either way, he couldn't feel happier… even when the alarm clock started blaring from the bedroom, reminding him that it was now eight in the morning – and that he was supposed to be waking up to prepare for his job interview.


	12. Chapter 12: August W Booth

**A/N: At last! Brace yourselves for two smut-free chapters. Boo, I know… However, I really like this part of the story: it's when everything starts to go downhill. What is fate, and what is the result of our choices? How much can you actually control? Do you get to define the greater picture, or certain things will happen regardless of your choices? Graham and Tamara meeting Emma and Neal, respectively, are also parts of the puzzle that got tossed around – and there is a subplot behind it, one that I intend to explore in Maid's sequel. For now, all I can say is:**

* * *

**Chapter 12: August W. Booth**

Emma Swan had just gotten into her pajamas and was now heading to the kitchen, feeling the muscles in her legs protest. She stretched her arms behind her back as she dragged herself to the fridge, and her eyes caught the clock on the wall: eight-fifteen. _In the morning._ What a time to get into her PJs, by the way.

But it was all for a good reason.

A smile lit up her face when she grabbed the bottle of milk, before the simple motion of bending her knees made her whole body ache. Note to self: sexathons were to be engaged in only after proper physical training. Otherwise, they meant being rendered useless the day after.

Next time, they would have to take it easy.

_'Really easy,'_ her mind reinforced, as she shifted on the chair and certain parts of her body protested, again.

She let out a contented sigh: there was no way, in this life or the next, that she would complain, though. For the first time in her life, she had had the kind of sex she never thought she would get – the one that resulted in loud, toe-curling orgasms for both sides, with her _special someone_.

Her eyes darted around the kitchen as if she was seeing it for the first time in her life. And in a way, she was: her apartment looked different now, as if every single room in it looked half empty when it was only her, when he was not around.

Certainly, the hormones that were still flowing freely in her bloodstream after a night of multiple orgasms could be held accountable for at least part of the fuzzy feelings inside her chest and the desire to cuddle with the man who was getting dressed in the bedroom while she prepared breakfast for the two of them…

A feeble attempt at breakfast, that is. The occasion certainly asked for a full table: bacon, eggs, pancakes, fruit, juice… everything. Still, all she had managed to do was grab a bottle of milk and place it in the dining table next to two bowls and a box of cereal.

_It was time they talked._

She let her gaze drop to the key she was holding, and in the back of her mind she feared it was too soon, and that he would push her away… And chances were that he would be doing the right thing, because it _was _too soon. Things had escalated far too quickly, and now she didn't know how to turn away, how to get the situation under control. Now there was this man in her life and she wanted him to stay. And it felt strange, for the first time, to think that now she would have to think things for two, to get two cups of coffee ready in the morning, and that they would have to negotiate what they would watch on TV and whose turn it was to clean the bathroom or to shop for groceries.

That is, if that was what he wanted _at all_. Because, maybe, it wasn't, no matter how well they got along and how great sex was.

Sex was really great.

Sex was really, _really_ great.

Her tired body still found the energy to shudder when she remembered all the ways he had taken her the night before. Heavens almighty, how had they managed to keep it going for that long? She was sore in all the right places – a lesson to be learned. There could be too much of a good thing, after all.

She was about to pour some cereal into one of the bowls when Neal showed up in the room.

"So," he asked. "Think I can get promoted to butler now?"

He outstretched his arms and turned around so that she could inspect his attire, and her jaw dropped a little. Black dress shoes, black pants and vest, a shirt and a tie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he held his jacket in one of his hands... She hurriedly searched for her glasses, so that she could see him with more clarity.

And when she did find them and pushed them up her nose, she had to let out a whistle.

_'Promoted to butler?'_ she mentally remarked, as her gaze shifted from his arms to his carefully disheveled hair. _'More like promoted to husband, maybe?'_

"OK," she finally said, her voice quiet and, at the same time, amused. "Who are you and what have you done to Neal Cassidy?"

"I hear he suffered a collapse after a sexathon with a certain Ms. Emma Swan..." he replied, as he pulled out a chair and sat across from her.

"Oh, did he?" she asked, a little smile curling her lips when he stared into her eyes. "Funny thing... Last time I checked, he seemed to be holding strong."

"On the outside, maybe... On the inside, he is nothing but a puddle of fuzziness and exhaustion," he said, taking the box of cereal from her hand after she had helped herself. "I also heard he was pleading for some good hours of sleep with his woman in her warm bed before he was forced into a suit to head to his job interview..."

"Oh... Now isn't that a tragedy?" she said, raising her eyebrows and trying not to laugh as he spoke. "Is it any comfort that his woman is also unhappy about having to go to bed all by herself?"

She saw him bite his tongue as he opened the bottle of milk, his eyes smiling at her words.

"You know what that means, right?"

"What?" he asked, before taking a spoon of cereal to his mouth.

"That you still owe me the infamous combination of sex, pillow talk, cuddling and breakfast in bed the next morning."

"I do, don't I?"

"You do."

"To think that I believed I had pretty much covered all bases when it came to sex..."

"You have not, _butler,_" she snickered, and her fingers clutched the key she was hiding under the table. "But, luckily for you, I'm about to give you something that might help you keep up to date with your boyfriend duties."

"Oh, are you?" he asked, glancing at her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. "Wait, I got something to give you as well."

"You first, then."

She watched as he stood up and walked back to the living room to search something inside his backpack.

"Here," he said, his eyes full of expectation as he handed her a small paper bag. "Sorry for not getting any… fancy gift wrap."

"Gift wrap is half the fun of gifts, but I'll let this one slide," she said, cutting the piece of scotch tape that held the package together. "Even because I didn't wrap mine, either."

Truth was, whether she would find a diamond ring or a peanut butter cup inside it didn't even matter; her excitement was entirely due to the fact he had bothered to get her a gift. She would have something of his, something he had given her, something that had made him think of her, and that now, would make her think of him every time she looked at it.

At what point she had become such a romantic fool was beyond her understanding, and she honestly did not care. When she emptied the contents of the bag onto her open hand, her eyes were shining: he had gotten her a keychain.

A _swan_ keychain.

Her fingers closed around it, and for a moment even the man sitting across from her was forgotten. A swan… a reminder of her name, a reminder of who she was. Of what she had become. She was meant to be an Emma, if her blanket was any indication of her parents' will, but the Swan… that was her addition. That was one of the many turns her life had taken, and that Swan, more than the Emma, was what had kept her going in the hardest of her days.

"Thank you," she whispered, finally raising her eyes to the man who was eagerly expecting some sort of reaction.

"You like it?"

"Yeah," she whispered again, before bursting into laughter.

"What?"

Of all things he had expected her to do, laughing at him was not one of them. He shifted on the chair, feeling his ears burn as he blushed. He let out a chuckle to hide his nervousness, although his eyes were probably doing him a disservice by darting from her hands to her face like there was no tomorrow.

"What is so funny?"

"Oh, nothing," she said, her lip trembling slightly as she took off her glasses to rub her eyes. "It's just that… I find it curious that you gave me a keychain when I got you… a _key._"

And then, all laughter disappeared from her face when she placed a key in front of his bowl of cereal. His eyes quickly caught up with hers, and he realized that in those few seconds, their roles had been reversed: it was her turn to wait for a response expectantly, her lips twitching as she tried to hide her anxiety.

"Emma…" he whispered, when his gaze dropped to the silver key on the table. "What is this?"

"The apartment," she replied, pushing her glasses further up her nose. "I… I was thinking about having a roommate, and… and I think… I think you're a good… option."

"You want a roommate?" he asked, smiling at how fast she was blushing. "I thought I was your boyfriend, have I just been downgraded or what?"

"Y-Yeah, I… I… Well, I know, that was not… it's not, I-" she stuttered. "Oh, Neal, come on. Don't make me say it."

"Say what?"

He watched as she shifted on the chair, opening and closing her mouth as if trying to let out words that were stuck in her throat.

"That I… I…" she tilted her head to the side, looking at the table. "That I want you to stay," she said. "With me. Here."

She raised her eyes to his again, and he almost laughed at how worried she looked. What did she think he would say? Did she honestly think, at that point, that he would ever consider leaving?

"You sure?" he asked, his voice quiet as his fingers grazed the key.

"Don't you wanna?"

He saw her anguished face from moments ago light up with hope when he smiled.

"Yeah," he whispered. "But under one condition."

"What?"

"We'll split the bills. Like, every bill. Utilities, rent-"

"Rental runs at five grand a month," she interrupted.

He raised his eyebrows at the sum.

"So yeah, we might start with the utilities…" he said, scratching his nose as he wrinkled his forehead.

"That would be nice."

"That is, 'til I get a decent paycheck… then we can… we can split the rental too but honestly now," he frowned, "five grand, Emma? _Five grand a month?_"

"I know, it's ridiculous…" she responded, after letting out a sigh. "Another reason why I wanted to move. I just… I feel I got attached to this place, but maybe it's time to hit the road again…"

"What about your job?"

"I can find a new one."

"We can stay in Tallahassee if you want to," he replied. "Or go somewhere closer to the beach, here in Florida."

"I know, it's just… I thought I should… I want to…"

He knew what she was going to say. The very few times in which her face had shown that much vulnerability had been those in which she talked about her parents, and days before they had been talking about that very same topic…

"You want to look for them."

"Yes."

It had taken her a moment to speak, and her eyes seemed to grow sadder. There was no point reminding her that he was about to head to a job interview that would hopefully ground him to that city, that would at least give him a bit of stability after the relentless stream of bad luck his life had been so far. If she chose to move away, they could still come up with something, though. He wouldn't let her go alone.

"We'll find a way."

He stood up and moved to her side to press a soft kiss to her lips, caressing her face as he held her head with his other hand.

"And thanks for the key…" he whispered into her ear. "But I should warn you: I snore."

"I guess you can always sleep on the couch," she replied, laughing quietly against his neck.

_As if._ They both knew that spot of the house was destined to other... _events._

"By the way, how are you feeling?" he asked, when the latest memories of the two of them together came to mind.

"Sore."

"Well, guess what. So am I."

"Really?" she asked, grinning widely. "I would have never guessed."

"I wish I could stay…" he muttered, pressing his forehead against hers when she stood up.

"Yeah… me too," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his closed eyes. "But you have a job to get, mister… And it's nine already…"

"I wish I hadn't closed my eyes… Now they simply won't open again… I feel like my eyelids have been glued together."

"Maybe you should wear your sunglasses?"

"And take a guide dog?" he asked with an amused smile as he blinked several times, in an attempt to look more alert than he actually was. "Not sure if I included that special need in my resume…"

"I always wanted to have a dog…" she said, while he unrolled his sleeves and fastened their portofino cuffs. "Did you use to have any pets? Before you… moved to the bug?"

_'Before you moved to the bug'_ was a gigantic time frame, he thought of saying. If she meant _'when you were married'_, the answer would be a very straight-forward _'no'_. Now, if she meant _'at any point of your life'_… He cleared his throat, and pondered if goats, cows and sheep counted as pets; he suspected they didn't, and therefore, mumbled that no, he had never had a pet in his life.

"Maybe one day we can get one..." he whispered, before picking up his folder and his keys – to the bug, and to his new home.

"Yeah… that would be nice."

"Wish me luck?" he asked, wearing his jacket under her appreciative gaze.

"Good luck."

And off he went, more confident than ever that his life was finally taking a turn for the best.

* * *

_Somewhere down the road, a man spotted him crossing the street, but he didn't notice his presence._

_Not even when the man got off his motorcycle and took off his helmet to walk behind him._

_There was no point, anyway, in worrying about being followed. He had no enemies, not in that land._

_Not that he knew of, at least. The only person he was intent in hiding from was locked in a universe which he was no longer part of._

_He had no reason to worry. Not even when the man turned the same lefts and rights, and entered the same building he was now entering._

_He had no enemies in that land._

* * *

"Mr. Cassidy?"

After twenty minutes of waiting, he raised his eyes to his interviewer, a short lady in a navy blue skirt suit.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!"

He smiled amiably as they shook hands, and straightened his tie when she motioned for him to follow her to the room where the interview would take place.

"Would you like some coffee… or water?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"That's OK, then," the woman replied, holding the door open for him to enter. "I'll be with you in a minute, I left your file on my desk!"

He nodded when she left, tapping his fingers on the table as he tried not to get nervous. So far, he was doing a remarkable job: no sweating, no stuttering, no shaky hands. He hadn't been through many job interviews in his life and he had always dreaded personal questions more than anything else in the world. He could handle the technical aspects of the job he was applying for: he had been blessed with a knack for learning and he had had very good teachers that never mocked him for his obvious lack of cultural references in a number of topics. He learned things fast. He read books, watched TV, he was taught how to use a computer and the Internet. A world of knowledge opened up to him and he wasted no time making use of it, hiding behind numbers, names and facts to escape his own story, his own past, the faces and objects that were no longer real – not in that new land. Nothing of his previous life made sense where he lived now, and he was fine with that.

But then people would ask questions – they always did – and he had to _lie_. About his family, about where he was from, about _himself._

And he was not as good as that as he would like to be.

"Excuse me… Mr. Cassidy?"

The voice of a man looking at him from behind the door brought him back to reality.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I'm late," the man replied, outstretching his arm for a handshake. "Name's August. August W. Booth."

"Oh…" Neal responded, shaking the man's hand with a raised eyebrow. "Nice to meet you, Mr. … W. Booth?"

"You can call me August."

The man pulled a chair to sit in front of him, and he found it really impressive that the company didn't seem to have a very strict dress code, since one of its employees was allowed to show up for work wearing jeans and a leather jacket.

"I thought… Ms. Elliot was the one who was going to… interview me?"

"Oh, she is," the man replied. "I am not here to interview you."

"Oh."

Neal tried to keep the conversation friendly, even though the look in the other man's face as he stared at him made him slightly uncomfortable.

"So…" he asked, blinking several times. "How… how can I help you… August?"

"I just… wanted to show you something," he replied, fumbling with a folder and placing it open in front of him. "Something I'm sure… you'll be interested in."

He could think of a few things he was interested in. Health care. Dental insurance. Paid vacation. Maybe… even a retirement plan?

He was interested in many things… but in that single line, in that single page he was looking at…

No.

_I know you're Baelfire._

He knew his face had given him away the moment his eyes got to the last word. If he had been remotely prepared for that, he might have been able to come up with some biting comeback, he could have denied it, said the man had gotten the wrong person, he could have laughed, kept his expression clear of any emotion…

But it was too late.

He knew he was going pale, and that the way his hand trembled when he picked up that cursed piece of paper was the kind of reaction the man sitting across from him had expected.

"What…" he muttered, "…what do you want?"

When he finally raised his eyes from the table, he saw two blue orbs studying his face with a mixture of concern and awe.

"Stay away from Emma Swan."

"What?"

"We'll be seeing each other again," the man replied, rising to his feet as he closed the folder and took it back. "And when we do, I'll explain everything."

His brain had come to a momentary halt. Questions about who that man was, how he had found him, and what Emma had to do with any of it kept elbowing their way to the front of his mind, fighting for his attention and getting tangled in a bundle of words much before any intelligible sentence got to his mouth.

The man had already closed the door behind him, and Neal knew that if he let him escape, he would be over. There was no way he would be able to go on with his life now that the bomb had been dropped upon his head, now that everything around him seemed to be falling apart like a sandcastle swept by the sea…

He nearly tripped on his attempt to jump from the chair to the door, and when he finally got to the hall, his heart sank.

_The man was gone._

"Mr. Cassidy?"

The voice of his interviewer came from somewhere behind him, and she was now clutching a folder with his resume and all the other information and documents he had submitted to her evaluation.

_All lies._

He felt he was about to throw up, the lenient gaze of the woman staring at him turning into some sort of derogatory statement, as if she too knew who he was, where he was from, who he was running from.

_He needed to get out of that place._

"I'm… I'm sorry, I'm not feeling very well…" he muttered, shaking the woman's hand before turning on his heels. "I-I think I should go…"

"But-"

He didn't stay long enough to hear what the woman would say, he didn't need to. Walking out in the middle of an interview usually resulted in the candidate not getting the job, unless he or she was some sort of extraordinary professional for whom exceptions would be easily made.

It was not his case, though. He had never been extraordinary in anything in his life.

He broke into a sweat as he waited for the elevator, seeing all people around him as potential threats, as if all of them had been in that room and knew exactly why he was running. He took off his jacket and threw it in a garbage bin near a water fountain, wiping his wet forehead with shaky fingers, trying to void his mind for a second, so that he could at least figure out what to do.

_What to do?_

When he was about to leave the building, he got rid of his tie as well, dropping it in an umbrella stand, feeling his shirt stick to his back as he fumbled in his pocket for the car keys.

He drove past at least half a dozen red lights on his way home, his mind way too clogged with memories and fears for him to worry about being hit by another car as he sped up recklessly down the streets of Tallahassee.

_ Stay away from Emma Swan._

His foot slipped on the porch when he finally got to Emma's apartment, and he cursed when the key he was holding with a shaky hand missed the keyhole four, five times.

He needed to get his act together.

He rested his forehead against the door, closing his eyes as he inhaled deeply. When he finally felt some of the adrenalin flooding his bloodstream was beginning to die down, he tried to unlock the door again, and this time, he succeeded.

He was home. Though now that he thought about it, _only God knew for how long._

"No, Gods, please no…" he whispered, covering his eyes as his heart started racing again.

_Stay away from Emma Swan._

When he got to her bedroom, he was relieved to find out she was sound asleep, with the blanket covering half of her head. He kneeled by her side and watched her face for a minute, feeling an urge to pull down the covers and check her heartbeat, to see if she was breathing, to see if she was really alive.

He didn't even know what his mind was doing anymore, and he wished he could brush off the feeling that her life was in some sort of danger because of him. He knew it wasn't, it didn't make sense. Why would it be? But then… why did he have to stay away from her, unless something bad would happen to her if he didn't?

He felt a droplet of sweat run down his temple as he stood up and headed to the bathroom, hoping that a cold shower would calm down his nerves.

It didn't.

But it helped, somehow, to get his thoughts back on track. The two things were totally unrelated, he pondered. There was no connection between his identity and Emma, that man was probably… one of her jealous ex's? And maybe he had let it slip, sometime in the past, during one of his drinking sprees, that his real name was Baelfire. And the man had been hanging around… keeping tabs on him, perhaps, a mad stalker trying to find something to use against him.

That settled it. He should just go to bed and forget that day had ever happened.

With a towel wrapped around his waist, he dragged himself to the laundry room where, hopefully, he would find something clean to wear. The extra walk around the apartment helped clear his mind, and when he finally slipped into bed and cuddled up with Emma under the covers, his heart felt lighter… as if nothing that had happened that morning could actually reach them.

* * *

_He was out of breath as he ran in the dark, jumping over roots and rocks and avoiding branches as he tried to escape the voices behind him. Shrieks of pain, of anger, cries of sorrow._

_"Don't stop," he panted to the woman whose hand he was holding. "Emma, we can't stop now!"_

_"Where are you taking me?"_

_"You have to trust me!"_

_"I can't… I can't run anymore!"_

_"Emma, PLEASE!"_

_And then the voices stopped, altogether. There were no more trees, or stones, or ground beneath his feet. He felt he was floating in a white canvas, with nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat surrounding him._

_"Bae!"_

_He whipped his head around, and saw them. A pair of reddish, devil-like eyes, the reptilian skin, the rotten teeth of a man who had once been his father._

_"Let go."_

_"Son, you have to go back."_

_"LET GO OF ME!"_

_And then, he was showered with blood. It covered his face, his chest, his arms. In his father's hand, that damned knife, stained with crimson._

_"Neal…"_

_And then he raised his eyes from the dagger, until they fell upon Emma's pale face. Her gaze was distant, as if part of her was no longer there, and when his eyes darted to her neck, his knees faltered._

_"On no God no… NO!"_

_He tried to stop the blood spilling from the cut in her throat, but when it started falling from the corners of her mouth, he knew he was fighting a losing battle._

_"What have you done?" he yelled, feeling his tears mix with her blood as the two of them fell to the ground, her fingers reaching out to grab his, though by now she had no strength to hold them. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"_

_"Even mutes can draw a picture."_

_He raised his head to look at his father again, and saw his face contort into a sneer._

_"I told you to stay away from Emma Swan."_

* * *

He woke up with a start, and when he looked at his arms, they were still covered in blood.

"Neal?"

His body hit the ground with a loud thud after he rolled out of bed, emptying the contents of his stomach on the floor, near the nightstand.

"Oh my God, Neal!"

"Emma…" he whispered, clutching his stomach as he tried to catch his breath. "Please… stay in bed. Don't… Don't get up."

His face was stained with tears, and he avoided looking at her as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, I… I just had a nightmare. That's all. Go back to sleep."

"Neal…"

"I'm fine," he finally managed to get to his feet, and looked at her worried face long enough to get his point across. "Please."

When she nodded in response, he ran off to the laundry room and returned a minute later with a bucket, a packet of wipes and alcohol. He realized that cleaning the floorboards made his mind strangely vacant; he then considered the possibility of cleaning up the rest of the room as well. Perhaps the entire apartment, until he was so drained that he would finally fall into a dreamless slumber.

And yet, he had the feeling that even if that was the case, he would still dream… And he didn't want to.

When the floor was clean, he put the alcohol away and headed to the bathroom to get rid of the wipes and wash his hands. His eyes avoided his reflection on the mirror for as long as they could, until he inevitably saw his own face staring back at him.

_He looked awful. _

He splashed his face and hoped his bluish lips would soon go back to normal – his appearance was positively alarming, and he didn't want to scare Emma more than he had already scared.

After he had brushed his teeth, he returned to the bedroom, only to find her sitting under the covers as she waited for him.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

"I will be," he replied, before grabbing his pillow and kissing her on the forehead. "But it's better if I sleep on the couch, I don't wanna wake you up again."

"But Neal-"

"I'll be fine."

And with that, he closed the door behind him, knowing that he was not going to be fine anytime soon.


	13. Chapter 13: Eclipse

_**Disclaimer: Some lines taken ipsis literis from Tallahassee. The circumstances, after all, called for them. And no. I do not own OUAT or the beautiful people this story is all about. **_

* * *

_**A/N: Chapter 13, in which… well. Why would I spoil you guys? All I can say is: yes, it is the mystery of August's box inverted (or should I say, averted? Or subverted? Or none of them? XD). Now it is Neal's box: any ideas as to what its contents are? Entertain me with your guesses! Also, THANK YOU for following and reviewing, you have no idea how much that motivates me to try and update this as often and soon as I can!**_

* * *

_**Chapter 13: Eclipse**_

He downed another shot of tequila under the gaze of a very condescending barman. It was part of his job, after all, to put up with people like him, drowning his sorrows in broad daylight, his back turned to the door as if the world outside didn't matter. To think that one of the chapters of his life had included lots of drunken men that started drinking very early in the morning. He snickered. No. Pirates didn't start drinking in the morning. They never stopped drinking, for starters. Their lives were a single, nonstop bender.

Until that day, the smell of rum made him sick.

After letting out another brotherly sigh, the barman poured him another shot, and he simply raised his eyebrows in return, pursing his lips. He had gone so far… and still, in times like those he felt trapped in all the places he wanted to forget.

He should be home, minding his own shit, instead of trying to drink his way into oblivion in some rundown pub. Ah, but the light-headedness… the way everything was slowly going out of focus… the voices coming from the TV above them mixing with those of the people around him, creating dialogues that made no sense at all…

"… and that was before we got here to…"

"… call now and we'll make this offer even better…"

"… but then I said he could go…"

"…with back to back episodes at nine…"

He lowered his head onto his crossed arms over the counter and felt his eyes flutter closed, knowing that this time, even if he dreamt, his mind and body were way to numb for him to react.

_Good._

"Hey, buddy."

He felt someone shaking his shoulder only a minute after he had fallen asleep.

"Wake up."

He grunted, eyes still tightly closed, trying to go back to his peaceful, dreamless nap.

"Come on. We're closing."

He forced his head up, feeling it far too heavy to keep it over his own neck without it falling back onto the counter.

"What time… what time is it?"

"Two in the morning."

He scrunched up his face, wondering if the man was pulling a prank on him. When he pulled out his cell phone to look at its screen, though, he realized that was not case.

_9 missed calls._

_'Neal, call me back when you see this.'_

Given that the message had been sent almost five hours before, he doubted calling at two in the morning would make any difference.

He cleared his throat and rose to his feet, finding it extremely hard to keep his balance as he searched his pockets for his wallet. After dropping an extra 20 dollar to the counter to reward the barman for letting him sleep for that long without ordering anything else but the whole bottle of tequila he had managed to gulp down, he braced himself for a very long walk back home, swaying as he reached for the door and left the pub.

* * *

Emma had dozed off on the couch as she waited for him to come back home, and the sound of the door lock clicking made her jump.

"Oh... hi."

He seemed surprised to see her there, waiting for him, or maybe not so much. Maybe the expression on his face was merely of a man who had drunk far too much for his own sake.

He let himself fall on the couch, next to her.

"I was... worried," she whispered, unsure as to what to say.

That was not how she had imagined that night would be. Watching TV as they curled up on the sofa under a blanket, maybe. Sleeping soundly on the same bed for the first time, maybe.

But having him get drunk and come back home in the middle of the night after a nightmare… that was something unexpected, to say the least. Still, she was not angry, or scared – if anything, only disappointed with the fact that he had chosen to drown his sorrows outside when he could have stayed and talked to her.

"I needed to... go out," he muttered, his eyes vacant as he spoke, avoiding her gaze. "Couldn't sleep, so... Yeah."

She would have comforted him, just like he had comforted her when she was in need of a shoulder to cry on. She could have made him feel better, if only he had trusted her to. Now, she was unsure as to what to do. Clearly, his job interview had not been a success, and she felt she could end up poking an open wound if she asked. But then, if she said nothing, he could think she didn't care…

"Do you... do you always have nightmares?" she asked, wondering if that topic was off-limits too.

"Yeah…" he said, and she couldn't help but notice how sad his eyes were. "Almost always."

She was about to speak again when his hand fell on her thigh.

"Let's go back to bed," he said, giving it a gentle squeeze before standing up and staggering towards the bedroom.

Unless she was getting it all wrong, he really didn't seem to be in the mood for talking. She felt like insisting, regardless: she needed him to know that she cared. But… maybe she shouldn't. Maybe he would talk to her the following morning, after he got some rest. And if he didn't… it was not as if he was obliged to, anyway.

She let out an unhappy sigh as she stood up and dragged herself to the bedroom, her mind bubbling with thoughts. When she finally got to the bedroom, she saw him lying on his stomach, wearing nothing but his boxers and with his face buried in the pillow.

"If you wanted to get wasted you could have stayed home…" she whispered as she kissed his hair after lying next to him on the bed. "The bar has plenty of options, and I would have gladly joined you."

He turned his head to look at her, and his eyes were sleepy when he gazed into hers for the first time that evening.

"I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry…"

She smiled quietly as her fingers carefully avoided the injury in his scalp, studying his face before answering.

"This is payback, isn't it?" she asked.

"Hmm?"

"For that day… when I got drunk?"

A meek smiled curled his lips.

"That day I got drunk as well."

"Yeah… but you took care of me, I know," she went on, moving closer to him as he shifted to lie on his side. "How did you do it?"

"What?"

"What did you give me, for my hangover?"

"Raw eggs…Tabasco… " he mumbled, closing his eyes, "…with a shot of espresso…"

"Please tell me you're joking," she whimpered, making a face.

"I'm joking," he laughed, raising a slightly shaky hand to her jaw. "Sorry, baby. I… I don't remember."

She let his fingertips trace patterns on her skin, touching the corner of her mouth as his eyes danced around her face.

"I don't get drunk very often myself," he added.

She brought his lips to hers, and slid one of her hands up his arms until it was resting on his shoulder as she kissed him, feeling the lingering flavor of tequila on his tongue, under the stronger layer of peppermint and mouthwash. His hand was slowly leaving her face to venture downwards, and she didn't push it away when he gave one of her breasts a gentle squeeze, moaning into her mouth as he pressed his other hand onto the mattress and tried to lodge himself between her legs.

And then he stopped, and his lips were no longer on hers, only the warmth of his breath. She could feel his heart beating against her chest, silently, immovable, and when she finally opened her eyes to look at him, he had a smile on his lips, though his eyes were still gloomy and distant.

"You okay?" she asked, rubbing his back as she searched for something better to say.

"I am now," he replied, kissing her forehead before rolling off her and pulling her head closer to his chest as he lay on his back.

She was not sure if he was saying that because it was the truth or only to put her at ease; either way, what mattered was that he was back… and she liked being with him. It didn't take long for the warmth of his skin to make her drowsy again, and in a matter of minutes, she was asleep.

* * *

The next day, he woke up way past lunchtime.

The last thing he remembered was breathing into her hair as she slept, waiting for him to fall asleep as well.

And eventually, he did.

The best part was that, this time, he hadn't dreamt. If he had, the nightmares hadn't been strong enough to wake him up. If they had, alcohol had numbed him enough to blur his memories of any event that might have taken place.

The only bad part was that now he had to deal with a hangover that barely allowed him to leave the bed. _Fair enough._ He had been aware of the risks.

He dragged himself to the bathroom, and got his head under the shower to wake up. Only then did he notice he was still wearing his boxers - the first of two realizations. The second one was that taking them off freed a very solid erection – the usual morning wood. This time, though, he felt he would be unable to deal with it properly, mainly because he was way too dizzy and nauseous to pleasure himself without throwing up in the process.

"Bad timing, mate," he whispered, looking down at himself as he turned the warm water to cold, cringing as his whole body protested at the drastic change of temperature.

One full pot of coffee later, he was back on the couch, wearing the only fresh clothes he had found in her, or rather, _their_ place: khaki pants and a white undershirt.

He took a deep breath as he waited for Emma to come back home. Sooner or later, he would have to tell her what his nightmares were all about. Of course, he could always come up with some sort of lie, he could always leave out some of the information – including the bits concerning his run-in with that stranger that told him to stay away from her. He could, and should, get things back under control. Go on with his life, resume the job hunting, clear his mind, focus on the present.

It was tempting to move over to the bar and fix himself a drink or two – the easiest way to calm his nerves would be to get sloshed again. But it wouldn't be fair, or intelligent, to simply take shortcuts in his pursuit for some peace of mind, not to mention that it would disappoint Emma again – he had noticed the look in her eyes the night before.

He had to get his act together – and drinking his way out of it would not do.

"Neal?"

He had gotten so completely lost in his own thoughts that he had barely heard Emma opening the door, and jumped from the couch when her fingers touched his shoulder.

"H-Hey…"

He smiled at her when she placed two brown paper bags on the table, and moved over to kiss him.

"How are you feeling?"

"Brand new," he replied, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Though I have to say, I drank pretty much all that gourmet coffee you had… I hope you were not saving it for a special occasion."

"You mean the Kopi Luwak?" she asked, her grin widening as she stared into his eyes. "Do you even know why it is considered… gourmet?"

"Nope," he said, "Do I want to know?"

"Nah, I don't think so."

She giggled before moving back to the table to start unpacking several boxes and bags from inside the brown paper bags.

"What, are those gifts?" he asked, frowning as she placed a pot of flowers with a ribbon next to the other boxes. "Emma, is today… _your birthday?_"

"Oh no, nothing like that," she answered, her face alit with joy as she spoke. "I got these from the kids at school. It was our last day of classes before Holiday Break…"

He let out a chuckle when he looked at the card attached to one of the gifts, a drawing of two short girls with a taller, yellow-haired doodle between them.

"When is your birthday, by the way?" he asked, eyeing her with curiosity as she moved the flower pot to the kitchen.

"October," she replied, before returning to the room. "Actually, if I'm not mistaken, we met a couple of days after my birthday."

"Is that so?"

"Yup."

"Do you accept belated greetings?" he asked, hugging her from behind when she approached the table again.

"That depends on what you have in mind," she replied, biting her lip when he started grinding his groin against her. "I usually don't…"

His lips grazed her neck, and he couldn't help but smile when she shuddered.

"You still sore?" he whispered, his hands moving to her hips as he pressed a soft kiss to her neck.

"A little…"

"Better wait, then?"

"Yeah…" she sighed. "Unless…"

"What?"

"Do we have any whipped cream?" she asked, her breath catching in her throat when his fingers dug into her hips.

"I don't think so…" he whispered. "But I would love to know what you have in mind."

"Remember that day I dreamt… of you?"

She could feel him getting hard, and her body – what a dysfunctional system, ignoring its own limitations! – wasted no time getting properly prepared as well.

"How could I not," he replied, biting her earlobe. "So… whipped cream, huh? Was it on me… or _on you?_"

His hand had dipped to her stomach, and it took her all the self-control she had to push him away.

"On me," she answered, after clearing her throat. "But we really, _really _have to wait," she said, smiling at him despite her best efforts to remain serious. "At least another week."

"Ah, I'm never falling for that one again…" he replied, turning her around to pull her into a hug, kissing her head as she laughed onto his chest.

"Hey, wait!" she pushed him away one more time, and her eyes darted to the packages spread over the table. "I got you something!"

"Emma…"

"Sshh, don't complain," she said, picking up a box and dragging him to the bedroom. "It's something that will help you sleep."

"A taser?" he chuckled, looking at her hand as he tried to guess what the contents of the package were. "A hammer, maybe? I'd rather you did not resort to violence."

"Not what I have in mind," she said, slightly out of breath as she forced him to sit at the edge of the bed. "Close your eyes!"

He complied with a smirk, hearing the sound of paper being crumpled and then tossed aside.

"Okay!" she said, her voice filled with enthusiasm. "You can look now!"

When he opened her eyes, the first thing he saw was her figure, grinning widely as she stood next to the window. And then, his gaze shifted to an object hanging on the wall, a few inches above her head.

"What is that?"

"It's a Native American dream catcher," she replied, beaming as she walked back to bed. "It's supposed to keep all the nightmares out, and only let the good dreams in to protect your home."

"It's flypaper for nightmares?" he asked, still studying the object with a mixture of awe and suspicion.

"Mmhmm."

He turned his head to look at her, and he knew, at that very moment, that even without a dream catcher, he would always have the best of all dreams while she was by his side. And if having good dreams was too much to ask, then he could only hope that when he woke up from his nightmares, he would still be able to watch her sleep… until he slept again, locked in an infinite cycle of reality and hallucination.

"Thank you."

She flung her arms around him, and pulled him onto the bed, until her smiling face was hovering over his.

"Now you wait here, because we are going to put it to the test," she said, kissing his forehead before she climbed out of bed. "Get into your pajamas… or, your boxers or…" she smirked as she rushed out of the bedroom, "… whatever it is you usually wear when you go to sleep."

"Are birthday suits allowed?"

"No!"

"Kill-joy…" he whimpered, even though he was beaming as well. _Get into your pajamas._ The last time he did, it had been a long, _long_ time ago…

He slipped under the covers after getting rid of his clothes, but not all of them. He didn't want to break her rules, after all. In a matter of minutes, she was back in the room, with two mugs in her hands.

"Here," she said, as she placed the mugs on the nightstand by his side. "Chamomile tea. You like it?"

"Not a big tea fan, but… why not?"

At that point, there was very little he wouldn't find fun doing. Drinking tea in bed, with his girlfriend by his side? All of a sudden, he couldn't think of anything more pleasant to do.

Actually, he could, especially now that she was pulling her dress over her head.

"Wh-What are you doing?" he stuttered, as she unfastened her bra.

"I'm undressing," she replied, glancing at him with a raised eyebrow. "What, you thought I would sleep with a dress on?"

His eyes slipped to her bare breasts, and he swallowed.

"Do you want me to go change in the bathroom?" she asked, realizing his hungry eyes dancing over her naked torso.

"Oh no…" he whispered, trying to stay put although his body was already responding to that sight. "Don't mind me, go on…"

"You really can't help it, can you?"

"What?"

"We are not doing it, just so you know."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied, biting his lip as she stood up to slip into her pajama bottoms, her hair falling upon her breasts to hide them from sight.

"Yeah, right…"

When she finally finished getting dressed, she slipped under the covers and pushed him to the side.

"Come on," she said, handing him one of the mugs. "Let's have some tea, and call it a night."

"Are you sure you don't-"

"No."

"Not ev-"

"No."

She let out a chuckle when he whimpered, sipping his tea with a defeated sigh.

"If all of this works and you have a decent night of sleep," she said, turning her head to look at him with a sly look in her eyes. "I'll be more than glad to take care of your morning wood tomorrow."

His eyes went wide, and before another word was spoken, he downed the remaining tea in his mug and turned off the lamp on the nightstand.

"Night, Emma."

* * *

Luckily for him, Emma Swan was a woman of her word. Not only had he enjoyed a night of peaceful sleep without the aid of any alcoholic beverage, but also for the first time in his life, he had been awakened by warm lips wrapped around his shaft. A morning blowjob… as if waking up with the woman he loved by his side was not enough.

He was definitely the luckiest man to walk on earth.

Days went by, and as they did, his fears of seeing August W. Booth again slowly dissolved into a mist of jumbled images. Even if they did end up meeting, he was absolutely convinced everything would turn out to be a misunderstanding of sorts.

"You know what will happen tonight?" Emma asked him as she set the table for breakfast.

"I can think of many ways to answer that question…"

Indeed, he could. He had promised to find her a nice belated gift for her birthday, and he had finally come up with a plan.

"I am sure you can," she replied, shaking her head. "I am talking about the eclipse, though."

"The lunar eclipse," he said, biting a bit of toast and trying to sound as unimpressed as possible. "Yeah, I know. What about it?"

"Oh, nothing," she shrugged. "I just… I thought you would be interested in seeing it."

"Me? Why?"

"I don't know… I mean, I thought you liked it… looking at the sky, at night."

"Nah."

He frowned, and the disappointed look on her face was almost comical. Of course he liked looking at the sky, watching the stars above them… so did she. And that was why he planned to take her out to see the moon go red by his side – it was not as if that kind of event happened every day.

However, the whole thing was meant to be a surprise, and he had other places to go first, other preparations to make. When he kissed her goodbye and headed to his first stop, the weight of the responsibility he was about to place on their shoulders gave him pause. Were they really ready for that?

_'Better not think about it too much,'_ he told himself, before disappearing behind a door and showing up on the street again a few minutes later, with a large box in his arms.

"Well, it's done…" he muttered, and whereas part of himself felt proud of his initiative, the other kept telling him that it had been the dumbest thing he could have done. "Too late to turn back now."

"It's never too late to turn back."

The voice behind him made his blood freeze.

"Especially when it's for a good reason."

He closed his eyes, and clutched the box he was holding until his knuckles turned white. He didn't want to turn around and see who he knew he would see, so he remained still, knowing, however, that the man wouldn't simply disappear if he kept his eyes closed long enough.

And so, he opened them… only to find August W. Booth staring at him.

"I see you haven't followed my advice."

"I don't take advice from strangers," Neal replied, trying to walk past him, only to have his arm grabbed by the other man.

"I thought I had introduced myself."

"You gave me a name. That's not enough."

The man took that chance to steal a glance towards the box, and he frowned after spotting its contents.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"What do you want?"

"I think it's time… For me to tell you everything."

"Look, August, I don't-"

"Name's Pinocchio."

For a moment, Neal felt like laughing. But then, all his amusement disappeared when he realized the man was staring at him again, looking more serious than ever.

"You're… you're fucking kidding me."

"After I tell you everything, you'll probably wish I were," he saw the man tilt head as he spoke. "But sadly, I'm not."

Neal sniffed and scratched his nose as he held the box under his arm. So much for the possibility of August being nobody but a jealous ex… Pinocchio, though… How he wished that was all a joke.

"Let's head to the bar, we can't have this conversation here," he whispered.

"I think you'd rather be sober."

"We'll see. Anyway, bar's better."

* * *

The barman eyed his box suspiciously when he placed it on the stool next to him, and he seemed to be about to say something when Neal placed a couple of 20-dollar bills in front of him.

"I just need a few minutes, okay?"

The man nodded in return, reaching for the bottle of tequila behind him.

"And I guess I'll need something stronger," Neal added.

"Whatever it is you're drinking…" August said, after taking the other seat next to him. "Make that two."

"Sure…" Neal whimpered. "As long as you pay for yours."

"Whatever. So..." he turned his head to look at the other man, but Neal kept staring at the glass the barman had just placed in front of him. "Are you ready?"

In response, Neal merely took the glass to his lips.

"A long, long time ago, there was a boy who left everything behind to save his father from a curse, and he ended in a strange land, all by himself."

He should have waited before sipping his drink. But then, how could he have known that the conversation would start like that? He choked on his scotch, feeling it trying to escape his mouth and burning his nostrils in the process.

"And just when he thought it was all over, magic entered his life one more time and messed up things again, and then once more, until much later, he found his way back to this world."

"How… how do you…" Neal muttered, wiping his mouth as his eyes darted madly around the pub.

"A little fairy told me."

"Which one?"

"Does it matter?"

He felt like punching the other man right between his eyes until he was forced to swallow that smirk on his face. Oh, Pinocchio was surely proud of himself and his magical informants. He hated the man already, and he still had the feeling things were about to get much worse than they already were.

"No. Actually, it doesn't matter what you know, it doesn't matter who told you, I don't care," he replied. "Whatever it is you are here to say, I am not interested, not if it has anything to do with that land, I don't… I don't belong there anymore," he lowered his voice when the barman lifted his eyes to his face. "I don't care about magic, I don't want anything to do with it. The only thing that matters, the only thing that I want to know is… What is the deal with Emma?"

It was Pinocchio's turn to sip his drink, his eyes growing strangely vacant.

"What that boy didn't know was that a curse was created… A curse that wiped away everyone's memories, that separated them from the ones they loved, that made them forget their names, their homes, everything," he put the glass down, and turned to look at Neal. "All happy endings… _gone._"

"When you say everyone…"

"I mean, _everyone._ Including the boy's father."

"He doesn't remember who he is?" Neal asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "He doesn't remember… _anything?_"

"He does not. He does not even know he has a son. Which means, of course, that he will never search for said son… not in this realm or the next."

He considered asking the barman for something even stronger. Something that would, maybe, send him into an alcoholic coma much before Pinocchio got to the part where he explained how Emma connected to everything he was saying, because if that was meant to be a mere introduction, then when he dropped the bomb his head would literally explode.

And so his father didn't even remember he had a son. _Excellent._ That meant he wouldn't have to worry about being found. Wasn't that what he had wanted since day one, just to begin with? To hide from his father, so that he would never be found?

Well, now the old man had lost his memory, so he wouldn't have to worry anymore. They were done, for good. No new disappointments, no more rejections. He should propose a toast and celebrate: his father was gone.

He only wondered why he was feeling so crushed, instead.

"Now, for the bad news," August continued, and Neal felt his heart sink even lower. "The place where the boy's father is… is where Emma's parents are as well. Emma…"

He closed his eyes, and waited for the rest of that sentence, the one that would seal the deal, the one that would prove that fate had screwed him up again.

"... she's not from here."

Neal raised his eyebrows, trying to delete what he had just heard before it registered on his brain. He even found the nerve to snicker, although he felt his heart was being squeezed by an invisible hand. But before he could stop himself, his mind rushed ahead of the facts and started showing him all sorts of scenarios, and none of them ended well.

"And?" he asked, not sure if he was ready for the answer.

"And she is the key. The curse needs to be broken, and Emma… It's her destiny."

He shook his head, in an attempt to give the man's words another meaning instead of the one slowly forming inside his head.

"I was tasked with keeping her on track, and you, my friend… just got caught in the crossfire."

He tried to snicker again, but this time, his face did not respond. It was as if all his muscles, and nerves, had frozen at the spot, his worst fears coming true.

_ That could not be happening._

It had taken him a life of lies to run from magic, to run from his past, and after everything he had been through, he had finally found the one person who made his life meaningful, that grounded him to a world that had never felt like home until that point… only to find out, in the end, that they were not meant to be.

"H-How… " he stuttered, taking a deep breath as he clutched his glass. "How the hell did this happen?"

"What?"

"How… Out of all people… How…"

"The two of you ended up together?" August completed the question that he had failed to elaborate, the one that seemed to have gotten stuck in his throat. "I don't know… _fate,_ perhaps?"

"If fate brought us together then there must be a reason."

"Probably."

"It makes no sense…" he muttered, staring into his drink in an attempt to find a decent explanation at the bottom of his glass. "That I have met her just… just to let her go. It just…" he bit his lip, trying to find words that would be useless, anyway. "It doesn't make sense."

"You love her. And if she loves you back, you will meet again when the time is right."

"When the time is right…" Neal snorted, downing the last two inches of scotch and slamming the glass back onto the counter. "Yeah, right."

"Baelfire…"

"My name is Neal," he snarled, nodding at the barman when he fished out the bottle of scotch from a shelf.

"Okay then, Neal, what-"

"Look, I can help her, okay? I'm from there, just tell me what she will have to do. I can help her, I can help her get home."

"Of course you can. By not getting in the way. By letting me do what I was told to do."

"No, I'm not… I'm not… walking out. I can help, I can… I can show her."

"Show her what?"

He thought of taking a sip of his drink before speaking again, but he feared he would end up vomiting if he did so. The adrenalin rushing through his veins was starting to catch up with him, and he broke into a sweat as his fingers danced over his glass.

"Magic," he whispered, not even sure of what he meant with that idea.

"Leading her to magic is my job, not yours."

"Why? What makes you better than me?" he ranted, unaware that several heads had turned to check what that outburst of anger was all about. "She _loves_ me, she trusts _me_! You're just a random nobody that's popped out of nowhere, why the fuck-"

_'…would she choose to trust fucking Pinocchio instead, of all people?'_

That was how that sentence ended in his head, but only in his head. His voice had died away as he looked at the object August had placed over the counter in front of him.

"What the hell is this?" he asked.

"You tell me. What do you see?"

He felt his eye twitch as he studied the thin pocket mirror, wondering if there was any chance he could use it as a weapon that would fatally injure the man by his side.

"I see a mirror."

"Of course, but what do you see _in_ the mirror?"

"Is this a magic mirror?"

"What do you see?"

He spent a second looking at his reflection, and then laughed the whole matter off.

"It isn't a magic mirror," Neal replied, shaking his head as a slow smirk curled his lips. "You're just… You're just testing me."

He blinked, shifted uncomfortably on his seat, looked at the box by his side, and then back at the mirror.

"I see… I see my face."

"This _is _a magic mirror."

"No, this is…" he smirked again, although his heart seemed to have skipped a beat. "This is not."

"The Blue Fairy gave it to me, so that I could see my father while I… while I did what I had to do," August explained, but Neal wasn't having any of it, and kept shaking his head as the man told his tale. "I guess it stayed for a very long time hidden in one of my pockets… But I'm here now. I'm here to set things straight."

"You're lying. I would, I would see it if it were…"

"It shows my father's store."

"No, I would… I would see it. I'm from there."

His voice, much to his dismay, was loaded with despair. He had been trying to keep his cool, to show August that he was not getting to him, but the truth was that he was beginning to realize what the man was getting at, and he refused to believe that the only time when he actually needed magic to come to his rescue, it had forsaken him for good.

"She told me this could happen…"

"Who told you? Happen, what…" Neal rubbed his eyes, feeling his whole body was about to burst into flames of anger and frustration. _"What are you talking about?"_

"You don't need to be from the Enchanted Forest to see magic. You don't need to have magic to see it, all you need… is to _believe._"

"Listen," again, Neal's eyes darted around the pub as he lowered his voice. "My father is the Dark One. I've seen magic, I _know_ what it does to people, I-"

"Yes. And you hate it so much that you don't see it anymore. You refuse to. You're _blind_ to it. And knowing what I know about you, I don't blame you. But you know what that means, don't you?"

Again, Neal's eyes were closed, and he simply waited for the evil hammer of fate to fall upon his head again.

"That you can't help her," August completed. "Not if you stay."

"I'll find a way," he whispered, clinging to every thread of hope he could find inside him, even though by then he knew that he was cornered, that he was running out of arguments.

"You're saying that now, and you're saying that because you're desperate. I know you don't want to let her go, but there is no other way. The future of everyone depends on her, and this is a task you _cannot_ handle."

That conversation was getting to a point where most of the words being said were no longer processed by his brain. Instead, he only managed to make out a few words and then tried to put them together, searching around for some meaning as he attempted to see the bigger picture. And so, there was a curse. Emma was supposed to break it. She needed someone to guide her. Apparently, he did not qualify for that job. If she didn't go, then no one would get their happy endings. If she did go, though... Then he would lose his. And maybe she would lose hers, too?

"Her parents are waiting for her."

He lowered his head, feeling that the man by his side had just delivered the final blow to his battered heart. Images of her talking about how much she wanted to meet her family, to talk to them, to understand why they left her by the side of a road... Emma Swan had parents that _wanted_ her. They had sent her away but they were _waiting_ for her. She had a family, but she would only meet them if he stepped back.

No... Emma would not lose her happy ending if he left.

She would_ find it. _

"Are her parents… any good at archery?" Neal asked, looking at his own hands as he spoke.

"Her mother is, yes. Her father is better at the sword. Why?"

"Nothing…"

"Anyway, they left her under my guidance so that I could take her back, but I can't do anything while you stand in the way."

He understood. He hated all of it, every single aspect of how things had turned out, but he understood it. He understood how high the stakes were, he realized it was one man's happiness blocking everyone else's, including hers.

_There was no other way._

"What…" he cleared his throat when his voice faltered. "What am I gonna tell her?"

"I'm sure you will think of something."

For the first time that day, August avoided his gaze, and he frowned.

"You're telling me… to _lie_ to her? I'm not gonna break her heart."

"If she thinks you love her, she will fight for you, and she will stray. She has a destiny to fulfill."

"I promised… I promised to take care of her."

"So did I."

And then the man's eyes pierced his, and he finally understood the price he would have to pay. It was not only about leaving. _It was about destroying all their memories in the process._ It was about taking away all hope, leaving no room for 'what-if's.

"Is there… like… anything else?" he asked, trying to snicker – it would be a better alternative than shedding the tears that were welling up in his eyes. "Maybe I'll need to… I don't know, tear out my corneas? Lose a hand, one of my kidneys, I mean… no physical ailments? I'm impressed."

"I know this is hard for y-"

"No…" Neal interrupted, finally drinking his scotch in one large gulp. "You don't know shit."

Again, he shifted his gaze to the box by his side, and hoped that the conversation would soon come to an end. There was not much more he could take.

"You really… you really don't know shit," he repeated. "When… when is this… this thing, this curse…"

"When she turns 28."

"28? _28?"_ he shrieked. "The fuck, man, that is like… a _decade_ from now!"

"In time, she will understand everything. When she's ready… I'll tell her why you had to leave."

"Man, this has to be a joke…"

He rubbed his eyes again, trying not to break in front of that man. Things were bad enough as they were, without having that messenger of doom witness his nervous meltdown.

"You have to believe you will meet again when the time is right," August said as he stood up and placed a 20-dollar bill on the counter. "When she's done with what she needs to do… I'll send you a postcard."

Neal Cassidy, also known as Baelfire, the son of Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, didn't even bother to look at Pinocchio as he made to leave the pub. Instead, his eyes remained glued to the counter, and in the minute in which his mind wandered, he saw an entire life with Emma Swan run before his eyes like a film, only to disappear like a handful of sand blown by the wind.

_They had been so close._

He downed his scotch under the gaze of the very condescending barman. It was part of his job, after all, to put up with people like him, drowning his sorrows in broad daylight, his back turned to the door as if the world outside didn't matter.


	14. Ch 14: Happy belated birthday, princess

**A/N: To all of you who have taken your time to leave a review: THANKS so much! I am so, so sorry for not updating this story as often as I should... I really hope you guys have not given up on me by now!**

**Anyway, here are the warnings for this chapter: 1) It is sad. 2) It is long. 3) Porn is back. If detailed descriptions of sex make you uncomfortable, at some point of this chapter you will be... well... ****_uncomfortable!_**

* * *

**Chapter 14: Happy belated birthday, Emma**

"You wanna know why I got married? I don't know, I don't know why I got married."

Every now and then, he would shift his gaze from the road to the passenger seat. He needed to calm down.

_He needed to think._

"What? Come on, don't look at me like that," he said, with a smile of his own, wetting his lips as he tapped the steering wheel. "I... I was too young, I think. I know it hasn't been that long, I... I don't know."

He was a few minutes away from Port St Joe, his mind slightly less blurred now that he had driven for almost two hours.

"I thought I could make it work."

He smirked when the dog inside the box yawned, knowing that he, Neal Cassidy, was officially insane. Not only was he talking to a dog, oh no… He was actually _hearing_ the dog talk back.

"No, we were never madly in love with each other," he answered the inexistent question, his eyes once again glued to the road. "But I thought we could... we could fall in love. I don't know. Nah… I don't think it is too soon. You don't either, you're trying to make me feel bad about myself, but the truth is that you're just as excited as I am about... about meeting Emma."

He raised his eyebrows for a moment, revisiting the latest events that had taken place in his life. Dude gets a dog, meets with Pinocchio, has to leave. Maybe that was fate telling him it was too soon, after all, for him and Emma to have a dog… to have anything, really.

"We'll be fine," he sniffed, not sure of how, though. "You'll love her, I promise. She... she is the coolest person you've ever met."

When he finally reached his destination, he parked the car in the usual spot under a tree, and thought about what he had just said. _Had he just lied to a dog?_ Chances were the two of them would never meet, not if he left that afternoon, not if he did what he was asked to do.

"I know you think I'm the coolest person right now, but I'm not," he continued, pushing thoughts about what he would do with the dog to the back of his mind. He would have to deal with them later; first, he had to figure out what to do about Emma. "You really, really need to meet her."

He reached over to scratch the puppy's head behind its ears, watching it tilt its head upwards with a delighted expression on its furry face as it stood on its legs and attempted to jump from the box to his lap.

"Come here," he said, picking up the dog and bringing it to his face while tickling its pinkish belly. "I don't know what to do…"

He didn't. The truth was that he had no idea what to do. He knew what he had been _asked to do_, now whether that was the _right_ thing to do… that was an entirely different story. His mind was spinning with possibilities: what if he found a way to take Emma to her family _now?_ What if they waited there until she turned 28? Would she believe him if he told her the whole story? What would she do?

"Let's go for a walk, what do you say?"

Before leaving the car, though, he spent a long minute in silence, thinking about what he would say when Emma and him came face to face for the last time.

'Emma, I'm so sorry...'

'No. Be more assertive. If you start by apologizing she will notice you're lying.'

'She'll notice you're lying anyway.'

'Still, it has to be something like: Emma, look. We have to talk.'

'Talk about what, for fuck sake?'

'Ok, ok, I got it,_ I got it!'_

"Just stop rambling and go straight to the point. Emma, do you believe in magic?'

He rolled his eyes at the voices debating inside his head. That conversation was bound to be a disaster... He would never be able to lie to Emma without her shooting him down in a matter of seconds.

_She knew him too well._

'Well, then, what do you recommend, genius?' one of the voices asked, challenging him to come up with a better solution.

"I could write a letter," he replied with a shrug as he reached for a notepad he kept in the glove compartment. Writing a lie, after all, would be easier than telling one while looking in her eyes. "Now whether she'll be convinced by it... that's another story."

He got out of the car and made his way to the beach, lowering the dog onto the sand with a sad smile on his face as he remembered his first stop that morning, instants before Pinocchio had cornered him.

Animal shelters made him feel miserable. Hence his quick-fire visit to the puppy fair the one in their neighborhood was holding: if he stayed longer and saw all the cats and dogs and rabbits and other animals people had given up, he would feel like taking all of them home and the impossibility of doing so would leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Instead, he had chosen to head straight to where the younger cats and dogs were kept, and it only took minutes for him to make his choice.

After walking past the boxes surrounded by children or other interested people, he had reached the only one no one seemed to care for, probably because the dog inside it was not exactly a young puppy anymore, although it still had the clumsy demeanor of one. It was a four-month old female mixed breed, with legs far too tall for its relatively small body. It looked a lot like a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Beagle, and its black-spotted coat suggested that there was also something of a Dalmatian in the mix.

The girl at the shelter was quick to inform that it would probably join the older animals in the shelter soon, since no one had been interested in taking it home. No wonder that it didn't seem very enthusiastic when Neal had approached its box; it was probably used to being rejected by potential owners, who saw a better fit in younger, better-looking puppies. The moment he picked it up from the box, though, the dog seemed to wake up from its stupor, and licked his face so eagerly and happily that he didn't even think twice.

_If only he had known._

He shook his head and tried not to think about what he would do with his new companion now that his world had turned upside down. Soon enough he would have to, but at least he could let the poor thing enjoy itself a little: when he lifted his eyes from the sand, he realized that the puppy was a couple of feet ahead, barking and jumping excitedly every time a wave crashed near its paws.

"Man, oh man..." he muttered, crossing his legs as he sat near the rock he and Emma had once climbed to see the sunset. "When it rains, it pours..."

He fished a pen out of one of his pockets and, without much thought, started scribbling on his notepad.

'Hey princess.'

He sneered at the words he had just written down. What exactly did he think he was writing? A morning note before she went to work? There were many things he hoped to accomplish with that letter, but none of them good. None of them worthy of an endearing beginning.

'Dear Emma,'

Too much. He scratched the first word, and went on to writing what he considered the lamest opening paragraph in the history of written break-ups.

'Emma,

By the time you read this letter, I will be gone. I apologize in advance, I know I should have told you everything in person, but I just couldn't.

There is something about me that I never told you.'

He raised his eyes from the paper to search around for the dog, and smiled when he saw it playing with a dried branch a few feet away from where he was sitting. Maybe he could tell Emma the truth? She deserved to know, after all.

'I am the son of Rumplestiltskin.'

Nah... What if she didn't know who Rumplestiltskin was?

He scratched his last sentence before writing again.

'Have you ever heard about Rumplestiltskin, that guy from the stories? Well, for one thing, don't believe everything you read.'

He crumpled the piece of paper and cursed as loud as he could. What the fuck was wrong with him? All he had to do was invent a lie, write it down and make sure the letter got to her. A clean job. Or, at least, as clean as a lie could get.

He scratched his nose and took a long, deep breath.

A lie. All he needed was a lie.

After smoothing the paper as much as he could, he crossed out the last paragraph and re-read the sentence before that. Something about him that she didn't know...

'I am a sex maniac.'

No. They had covered that topic before.

'I am a compulsive liar.'

Why would she even believe that letter, then?

'I am...a criminal on the run.'

'Jack the Ripper.'

'Gay.'

"A monk in training?" he whispered, after crossing out yet another stupid idea and letting his shoulders droop in defeat. "What the hell, Emma, I just... Nothing sounds believable."

_'Maybe nothing is meant to,'_ he thought

He was about to settle for "emotionally inapt" when he thought of something worse, much worse. Something that she might not believe at first, but that she was bound to, if he was cruel enough to push certain buttons...

In his mind, he reviewed their moments together... Things he had told her, things she had told him... There was a part of his past she knew about, one that he could twist in such a way that he was sure she would hate him blindly for the rest of her life...

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his lips, his gaze resting on the waves before him. Talk about a low blow... But if that was the only way, then be it. He would break Emma's heart, but she would live. She would do what she was meant to. She would meet her parents, find her own Prince Charming... Her own happy ending.

And eventually, forget all about him.

Part of him celebrated internally when he failed to remember his ex-wife's phone number, as if hoping he would change his mind about that scheme. Still, his desire to put an end to it all before it hurt even more forced his numb mind back into work, and he was finally able to dial the number he needed.

"Tamara?" he asked, when nothing but silence greeted him from the other side of the line.

"What do you want, Neal?"

He let out an unhappy chuckle at her voice, always so loaded with disdain. Anyone to witness their interactions would think that he was the unfaithful spouse, that he was the one who had ruined their marriage and deserved to be treated as nothing but an insect.

"I need a favor."

He heard her snort, and before she could come up with one of her many stinging lines, he cleared his throat.

"Since it involves fucking up my life, I think you will be glad to lend a hand."

There was a moment of silence, which he interpreted as an invitation for him to go on.

"In case a woman named Emma Swan calls you, you just... Tell her you and I are back together, ok?"

"What?"

"Just tell her that. And tell her never to call you again."

"Why would she call me? And why the hell would I say we're back together?"

"As I said, because it would fuck me up. Your specialty."

"Neal, stop playing the vic-"

"Tamara, _please._"

She snorted again, and he felt a pang in his heart. He had given that woman one year of his life, and even if he had never been madly in love with her, the fact she seemed to detest him that much left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Fine."

He hung up, trying to swallow his humiliation as he looked at the sea again, before going back to his letter.

He didn't even know what he was doing anymore.

After getting a new page from his notepad, he finally scribbled a half-assed goodbye note with some of the most hideous lies he could think of - _sex was great, thank you, I was confused, I can't stop thinking about her, you'll find someone else_ - and then folded the paper and placed it inside the envelope that should contain a "Happy Belated Birthday" card instead.

He felt like a cheater. And in a way, he was. He was leaving the love of his life because Pinocchio had told him to. But what choice did he have? There were plenty of alternatives: he could tell Emma who he was, he could tell Emma about the curse, he could tell her nothing at all and simply take her to where she was supposed to be when she turned 28. All of them would hurt much less, but none of them actually guaranteed that she would end up doing what she had to. None of them could take away the feeling that if he stayed, he would be stealing her of a happy ending, of parents that loved her, a family that she had spent years looking for.

And then, his mind shifted to the other problem he had in his hands.

"Hey, girl," he whispered while he ran a hand over the head of the dog that had fallen asleep by his side. "Hold down the fort while I go say goodbye to Emma?"

The puppy, however, barely moved as he spoke.

"What am I saying? I can't leave you alone on a beach. You're just a puppy," he said, frowning as he considered his options. "Though I'm sure you would make it. You're a badass, ain't you? A survivor. I like that."

He got to his feet, still unsure as to where he would take the dog he was, again, talking to.

"Or should I take you with me?" He scratched his neck, and then let out a sigh. "God, what am I gonna say? 'Hey, Emma, look, I gotta go, but here is a dog, I hope you like it.'"

He looked at his watch, then to the sea, and then to the dog. It was time to go, and he still didn't know what to do.

"Maybe I should keep you..." he whispered, as he picked the dog up and it finally woke up to wag its tail and sniff his clothes. "But keep you where? I won't even have a place to live in!"

He rubbed the dog's ears, and laughed when it attempted to lick his face in return.

"I can't take you back to the shelter. You like me, don't you?"

Not for the first time that day, he felt like crying.

"I like you too."

He felt his cell phone buzz on his pocket, and before he even looked at it to check who was calling, his heart started to race.

_Emma._

"Oh, no..."

He looked up to the sky, blinking away tears as the phone kept on buzzing.

* * *

"Neal?"

"Hey love."

"You okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Fine. Just calling to check if you want to grab some dinner before heading to your... _mysterious place._"

She smiled as she paced the room, holding the card with her "instructions for the night". That man and his crazy ideas. She knew he was playing hard to get when he pretended not to care about the eclipse earlier that morning...

"Oh, about that..."

There was something about his voice that made her frown, but she chose to let him finish before voicing her concerns.

"Something came up... I guess you'd better wait for me there, is that ok?"

"Yeah... No problem."

"Okay then."

"See you at nine o'clock sharp."

"See ya."

After she hung up, Emma Swan found herself wondering how it was possible to know someone so well in such short amount of time. She was absolutely convinced there was something wrong with that man, and all it had taken for her to come to that conclusion was a couple of words exchanged over the phone. Still, she knew that there were huge parts of his life that he had chosen not to share with her... things that troubled him and made him suffer in silence, and she wished he would trust her enough not to feel he had to carry that burden all by himself.

She took a long, deep breath before heading to the bedroom. Soon enough, they would be face to face, and she would most likely find out she was worrying for nothing.

* * *

And so it was that he had managed to get her the keys and the password that granted her access to a swimming pool on the last floor of an apartment building in their neighborhood. Now she knew _exactly_ what he had planned for them to do during the eclipse.

"The horn dog..." she whispered, looking around as she waited, the smile on her face revealing she didn't disapprove of that idea at all.

It was a warm night, and the sky was as clear as it could get. She closed her eyes and let the wind blow through her hair: life was good. She felt strangely happy, as if things were finally coming her way, as if she finally belonged somewhere, with someone.

Maybe that was what happiness felt like.

"Hey princess."

Her eyes shot open when she heard his voice right behind her.

"Hey..." she replied, flinging her arms over his shoulders as she kissed his lips. "Finally! I thought you had changed your mind about this."

"No…" he whispered back, pressing his forehead against hers.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"No, hey…" she forced his chin up so that he was facing her. "What's wrong?"

Her heart skipped a beat when his eyes finally met hers: they were so bleak, so dark, that she felt she was drowning in them, a bad feeling crawling under her skin. But then, it was all gone: she saw him blink as he smirked, and his usually playful look was back in place.

"Let's go for a swim, what do you say?" he asked, giving her arm a gentle squeeze as he unbuttoned his jeans and got rid of his clothes.

She nodded in agreement as she followed suit and unzipped her dress, letting it fall to the floor before kicking it away along with her shoes. The night breeze made her shiver, and the fact the water itself was much colder than she expected didn't help much: before she knew it, her teeth were chattering. She dipped her head underwater, and when she resurfaced, Neal was looking at her with a smile plastered on his face.

"I can't believe you're shaking," he said, before wrapping his arms around her and rubbing her back to warm her up. "You must have been born with a malfunctioning thermostat."

"My thermostat works very well, thank you very much."

"Yeah, right..."

She smiled when his hands moved from her back to her arms, the heat of his skin slowly taking all the cold away. She was sure that in a matter of minutes, she wouldn't even notice they were in a swimming pool... his face, his body, everything about him made their surroundings immaterial. Her fingertips slid up his scalp, and her grin broadened when a sigh escaped his lips before she covered them with her mouth, her tongue darting out to search for his, to feel his warm breath merging with hers as they kissed. But much to her surprise, for the first time since they started dating, _he was holding back._ His kiss was hesitant and brief, as if he was trying to avoid her again.

"Neal?"

"Hmm?"

"Tell me what happened."

"I'm sorry, I… I just had a strange day."

"Really?"

"Really."

He smiled before giving her a quick peck on the lips and lifting his gaze to the sky.

"Look," he whispered. "It's beginning."

When she looked at the moon, she realized it was starting to glow a bright orange. She had seen a lunar eclipse before, when she was just a child, but at the time, she had found the bright red globe far too scary to be fully appreciated. But now, in that pool, though... She felt nothing could harm her, and she was finally able to see the beauty in it... and in many other things that she had never paid attention to before.

"This is awes-"

Her voice died in her throat when she caught a glimpse of the man by her side, his eyes as sad and hopeless as she had ever seen them as he stared at her face.

"Neal, what is it?" she asked, catching his face in her hands before he looked away.

"Nothing."

"Neal..."

He smiled again, but this time whatever facade he was trying to put up was far from convincing.

"Emma, I… I have to tell you something."

"What?"

"I'm… I'm not from here."

"From here, from here Florida?" she asked, as her fingertips traced patterns on his cheeks, her eyes never leaving his face. "Or from here, the US?"

"From neither."

"Are you from another country?"

"Well... yeah."

She couldn't possibly imagine how being a foreigner was a reason for all the seriousness in his voice, yet he looked so miserable as he spoke that she asked the only question related to the theme that might be a reason for concern.

"Are you... _illegal?_"

"I'm quite sure I am," he replied, after letting out an unhappy chuckle. "I'm... I'm from another land."

"What land?"

"A land... where magic exists."

Her eye must have twitched, and she saw him swallow in response, as if dreading what she was going to say. She kept looking at his face to gauge his true intentions: was he trying to make her laugh or should she worry that he was hallucinating? The look in his eyes was so fearful that she honestly had no idea what to say, or do. If he was really pulling a stunt on her, kudos to him. She would have never been able to tell.

"Is that so?" she asked at last, with a little smirk of her own to test the waters.

She let out a relieved sigh when he smirked back, although his eyes were still darting nervously from her mouth to her eyes, his chin shaking slightly. It _was_ a joke, after all.

"I suppose you're a magical lover, then?" she chuckled, wrapping a leg around his waist and pulling his body close to hers.

And then, his smirk disappeared for the fraction of a second and she could swear she saw him wincing. But maybe it had only been her impression, because one second later he was smiling again, wetting his lips as his hands slid down to her hips, holding her legs in place as he nibbled her ear.

"Provider of magical orgasms since… I don't know, when did I start working for you?"

"That explains a lot," she was able to mumble in response, as his mouth sent shivers up and down her spine.

She smiled in delight as her body slowly got ready for him... but as she pressed her chest against his, she realized there was something off.

"Neal, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry that I'm not… ready for you yet," he muttered, blushing slightly when her hand brushed against his boxers.

"I'm not talking about that. Your heart… it feels like it is about to burst out of your chest!"

"I just... I'm sorry."

"Please tell me what is going on," she said, pressing her forehead against his with a pleading look in her eyes. Something was happening inside that head of his, and she could physically feel that he was not well. His eyes, his smile, the tension in his shoulders, everything felt out of place, but for some reason he just wouldn't tell her why.

"You wanna know what is going on?" he asked, biting her shoulder slightly as he pushed her against the edge of the pool.

"Of course!"

"Can you reach my backpack behind you?"

She looked into his eyes for a long instant before turning around and lifting her body off the water.

"Think you can grab the can that is inside it?"

She searched the contents of his backpack until her fingers made contact with an icy surface.

"Whipped cream?" she asked, sliding back into the water with the can in her hand. "Neal..."

"What?" he asked, taking the can from her hand as she nibbled her shoulder. "Not the brand you dreamt of?"

"We don't have to do this."

He pulled back for a moment, looking into her eyes with the same gloomy expression as before.

"You don't want to?"

"You're not well."

"But I'll be..." he whispered, with his head once again lodged between her neck and her shoulder. " I just... I wanna make love to you."

And then, he raised his eyes to hers, and she knew, as usual, that she was a goner. There was no way, in that life or the next, that she could turn him down when he looked at her like that.

"Please," he went on, and his voice was so hoarse and deep that she felt her body had already come to a decision about his request much before her mind could argue otherwise. "I promise it will be good."

She had no doubt whatsoever that it would be good. It always was, and the way her blood was flowing to all the right parts of her body as his hands traveled up her back to unclasp her bra left no room for wonder. Her eyes shifted to the sky above and she saw the full moon in its reddish splendor a second before her eyes rolled back into her head as his tongue darted out to lap a squirt of cream he had squeezed onto the nape of her neck.

"Fuck…"

He licked the stretch of skin leading to her collarbone, and then to her jaw, following a trail of white that he sucked slowly, teasing her with his teeth as he pressed kisses all the way up to her mouth. And then he stopped, breathing heavily into her parted lips, smiling at the moans he was eliciting as he squeezed one of her breasts under the water.

He had opened his mouth to say something, but there was no point anymore. Whatever it was he was planning to say, it would probably not answer the burning questions she had successfully pushed to the back of her mind. She wanted, and _needed_ to feel him inside her, to kiss him again, to touch every inch of his warm skin.

And so, her mouth searched for his once more, and their kiss was even more desperate than before, hands and hair and fingers and water adding to the already convoluted movement of teeth and tongues, random ramblings leaving their lips at the same time as he helped her out of the water so that she could sit at the edge of the pool.

"God, I can't believe we're doing this," she muttered under her breath.

"Doing what?"

"This," she replied, lifting her hips off the ground so that he could remove her underwear in a swift motion. "In… someone else's swimming pool."

"You afraid of getting caught?" he asked, wetting his lips as he spread her legs, glancing quickly at her face before shaking the can.

"Afraid?" she smirked, a bolt of electricity raiding her body when she felt his warm breath on her inner thigh. "Not really."

"Well, you should," he replied, before licking away the trail of cream he had placed on the junction of her thigh with her torso, nibbling softly at her skin as he sucked and kissed his way to her mons. "We could get arrested, you know?"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

She bit her lip when he deliberately avoided her sex to move to her other thigh, repeating the same procedure as his hand massaged her stomach.

"On what charges?"

"Burglary, for one thing," he whispered, raising his head for a moment as he licked his lips, his thumb gently rubbing her wet folds as he spoke. "And public lewdness, of course."

She let out a moan when he withdrew his fingers from her, lifting his body from the water to press soft kisses to the sides of her breasts as he squirted a trail of cream from her navel to her clit.

"I think I'll have to hire an attorney then…"

"Yes, you will," he replied, smiling as he teased her nipples with the tip of his tongue before moving down to lap the cream on her lower stomach. "But I got your back."

She would gladly respond, but her voice failed her when he withdrew his mouth again, his finger spreading the cream over her engorged bud with a series of very quick, very gentle strokes.

"Fuck, Emma…" he moaned, and through semi-closed eyes she could see him staring at her sex as he licked his lips. "So wet…"

She could feel her juices trickling down her labia, flooding her hole as her heart raced. She instinctively moved her hand down to touch herself, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled it to the side of her body.

"Neal…" she whimpered, the insistent throb on her clit making her bite her lip in anticipation. "Please…"

"Wait…"

And then, she felt his warm breath on her again, and a cry of pleasure left her lips when he entered her with the tip of his tongue, licking her entrance with slow, circular motions.

By the time she heard him shake the can again, her eyes were closed and her moaning was a constant humming sound. To think that before she had met that man, she used to think she had a pretty decent sex life.

_What a joke._

She doubted, however, that before Neal Cassidy she would have allowed any other man to do the things he did to her… She couldn't remember any occasion in which she had trusted someone so much, enjoyed being in the company of someone so much… almost as if they had met ages ago, and he knew every single detail of her soul - and body, obviously.

Her breath was coming in small gasps, and her veins seemed to be full of electricity; she was cold and hot, all at the same time, and every time he licked her inner lips, she felt every single muscle of her body tense and release, little explosions of pleasure flooding her bloodstream.

She opened her eyes again, and there it was: the red moon, watching the two of them doing very naughty things under the starry night. Her mind drew a blank when he finally caught her clit in his mouth, sucking it fiercely as his fingers moved in and out of her hole. She thought she couldn't feel any better than she was already feeling, and she was wrong: when she finally reached her point of no return, all the nerves in her body seemed to burst at the same time, wave after wave of pleasure making her back arch as she held his head in place, grunting as he replaced his fierce sucking on her clit with soft, long licks all over her sex.

She let her upper body fall to the floor as she tried to catch her breath, and her eyes fluttered closed. Her body was tingling and she was not sure she would be able to move anytime soon, but apparently, she would have to: Neal had already sat by her side at the edge of the pool, getting rid of his boxers to release his erection.

_He was nowhere near done with her yet._

She rolled on her stomach and forced herself on her knees, feeling her limbs were about to falter when she grabbed his cock and led it into her mouth. In the meantime, he was searching his backpack again, moaning every time she flicked her tongue across his glans.

After he had found what he was looking for, he lifted her head from his lap and brought her lips to his, kissing her as he stroked himself after tearing a packet open with his teeth.

"Wait…" he said, looking from her face to his cock, and then to his hand. "I've never done this under water. How… Do condoms, like… do they stay?"

"I don't think so…"

He was such an adorable creature. As he thought about his latest dilemma, his eyes had that spark of curiosity and worry, and she couldn't help but laugh – probably a side effect of her lingering orgasm.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as she moved over to straddle him.

"You."

His eyes went wide when she reached between her legs to guide his cock into her slippery folds, and a gasp escaped his throat when she lowered her body onto his until he was fully lodged inside her.

"You... You sure about this?" he whispered, as his chest heaved up and down.

"Yeah."

"You on the pill?"

"Yeah..."

She thought, for a moment, that she might have forgotten to take it a couple of days, but it was not as if he needed to know. She knew that if she told him, he would probably call the whole thing off and she didn't want him to. What were the odds of something happening, anyway?

"So I can...?" he asked, biting his lip as he stared into her eyes.

"What?"

He wetted his lips, and she felt his muscles clench under her.

"Say it," her eyes locked with his as her nails grazed his shoulders. "What do you want, Neal?"

His eyes fluttered closed, and his moans mixed with hers when she rocked her hips and then stopped, using her muscles to pull his shaft deeper into her.

"Come... I wanna come inside you."

"You wanna fill me with your seed?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She lifted her body from his until only the tip of his cock was still inside her, and then it was his turn to throw his hips upwards, sliding easily in and out of her well-lubed hole, feeling her hot wetness open up to welcome him.

_He loved that woman._

He loved being_ inside_ that woman.

Those were the only two thoughts he was allowing himself to have - all the others, for the time being, would have to wait.

He eased himself into the pool, taking her with him. Now that they had both worked each other into a heated frenzy, the water felt colder than ever, but at least for him, that was a minor moment of discomfort that dimmed in comparison to the other sensations her body was making him experience.

"I guess we can say," he muttered, pressing her back against the edge of the pool as he steadied himself between her legs, "that we are officially having sex in someone else's swimming pool."

She burst into laughter as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and all of a sudden his surroundings no longer existed, only that woman and her smile.

He thrust into her faster, and harder, and it was as if his mind wanted him to get off as soon as he could - before he realized he would never see that smile in her face again, before he changed his mind about everything and chose to stay and to hell with everything else, because he just couldn't live without her.

_He couldn't live without her._

Her moans helped him shut down his mind, and he lifted his eyes to the sky, to the red moon above them, wishing he would never forget what it felt like to be inside her... Wishing, maybe, that she would never forget what it felt like to have him inside her?

He lowered his gaze back to her face, and saw her eyes closed as she bit her lip, still moaning.

"Cum for me, Neal," she whispered into his ear when his breath became more erratic, just like the movement of his hips.

And he did. He thrust into her twice, three times more, and he came. For what felt like an eternity, he felt that tidal wave of pleasure sweep his body and his mind, and he remained inside her, waiting until he could find his voice again, waiting until he could breathe.

He heard her let out a sigh of contentment as she kissed his neck, her fingertips caressing his scalp as she hummed into his ear.

"And that, along with the whipped cream and the swimming pool, covers three sexual fantasies in a single night..."

He chuckled. That had been the intention all along - except that he hadn't counted that_ third_ event to enter the list of things she dreamt of doing.

"I guess you really _are_ full of magic."

Her words crawled under his skin in a way she would never be able to imagine. And so, he laughed. He laughed like a maniac, and she joined him as she kissed his hair, unaware of the bottomless pit he felt he was falling into. The irony of all ironies. His life had always been full of magic, oh, yes, even when he thought he had gotten rid of it for good. And then, he had worked so hard to have an ordinary life in that new world... He had gotten himself a new name, a new place to live, things to keep his mind busy, other books and films and tales to replace his own story, to put all fairytale things behind him... Now, it was gone. Magic was finally gone.

He had failed in the ridiculous mission he had assigned himself before heading to that date: to tell her where he was from, to explain who he actually was. That was all he had to do. That was all he needed to convince himself that, maybe, he would be able to handle that task. She just needed to believe him… but she didn't. Of course she didn't. And he didn't blame her for that, _he blamed himself_ for not having any ideas as to what to do to make her believe.

Because no, he was not 'full of magic' anymore, not by any means... He had nothing to show her, nothing to teach her. He was useless. He couldn't help her.

"Neal, what's wrong?"

His fingers had dug into her skin, and he thought he should really stop laughing before he ran out of breath.

It wasn't until the tears started spilling from his eyes that he realized that he had stopped laughing a long time ago, and that it was his sobs, and not his laughter, that were making his whole body shake against hers.

"Neal?"

He opened his mouth to speak, looking up to the sky once again and trying to get his heartbeat back under control before offering any decent explanation. He swallowed the urge to apologize, to tell her that he was sorry for what he was about to do. He should make a discreet exit, and make sure no door behind him was left open. But at least, he needed her to know, he needed her to believe it, even if it was for that moment, even if his actions from then on pulverized every little bit of trust and hope that she had ever deposited in him.

"Neal? Talk to me."

"I love you," he whispered, with his face still buried in her shoulder, trying his best to stifle his misery. "Promise me you'll remember. I love you so much."

"You're scaring me…"

"I'm sorry, Emma…" he whispered, taking a long, deep breath as he spoke and wiped his tears away. "Sometimes… I just get… I don't know… Sometimes I'm all over the place."

"Why?"

"I don't know… I just… I don't know… I'm sorry."

"You're hiding something from me."

"I just… I've…"

That was it. Either he got his act together now or the damage would be even worse.

"I've been thinking a lot about my father, Emma, but really…" he lied, looking away. "I don't… Please don't make me talk about it."

"Oh."

He was still avoiding her eyes when she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm so sorry, Neal…" she whispered. "I'm here, and I'm not letting go of you, ok? I'm not leaving."

His life, sometimes, felt like a cruel joke. Out of all the things she could have told him… She had to say exactly those words.

Of course she was not leaving.

_He_ was.

He pulled out of her embrace and climbed out of the pool after helping her do the same. Now he wished he had not been with her that night, because seeing her that vulnerable after giving in to him, seeing her eyes so full of joy and care as she grabbed the towel he was offering her, made him feel like he was the scum of the universe when he thought of what he was about to do.

"Come on," he said, looking at the ground as he tried to stuff his guilt in some dark corner of his mind. "I need to get you home."

* * *

He drove back home in silence, trying to ignore the worried glances she kept casting in his direction. Now it didn't matter anymore; if he had to start breaking her heart, it might as well be now, by denying her an explanation about his sudden change of mood.

Minutes later, before they entered the apartment, he excused himself for a moment, saying he had left something in the car.

Instead, he headed to the neighbor's house, with his hands stuffed inside his pockets.

"Oh, Mr. Cassidy, you're back!"

An old lady with her white hair tied up in a bun showed up from behind the door after he rang the bell, and he simply smiled at her words, apologizing for taking so long. She invited him in, but he politely refused – he didn't want to bother her even more than he had already bothered.

He watched as she turned on her heels and slowly made her way into her living room, only to return a minute later with a smile on her face.

Of all the neighbors he had interacted with during the months he had spent in Tallahassee, Ms. Worzniack was definitely his favorite. She would always invite him for some tea after he had walked her dogs, and he would always take a rain check.

Now he wished that at least once he had accepted her invitation.

"I'm sorry for imposing."

"Oh, don't! She's such an angel," the old lady said, handing him the dog he had left under her supervision. "I hope you don't mind the ribbon, but as you said she is a gift to Ms. Swan…"

"Thank you," he said, smiling as he eyed the red bow tied to the dog's neck.

"I am sure she's going to love the surprise," she said, grabbing his arm with her fragile hands. "She's very lucky to have found a young man like you."

He lowered his eyes to the ground, wishing he could disappear under the mat he was now standing on. After a brief farewell, he walked home, feeling his morale had deflated even more after the old lady's words.

"Now, here's the thing," he muttered, stopping a few steps away from the door leading to Emma's apartment and bringing the dog's ear closer to his lips. "I'm leaving you in charge, okay?"

He raised the puppy up in the air to look at its face as he spoke.

"This is very important. Whenever she feels sad… make sure you cheer her up. Can you do that?"

The dog kept staring at his face, and he realized that anyone that walked past him at that moment would probably think he was crazy, not so much for talking to a dog… but for actually _waiting_ for a response.

"Give her a long lick on her face, and follow her around, steal one of her shoes… I don't know, use your… dog tricks. Just… make her feel like she's the most important person in the world."

He took a deep breath as he rang the doorbell once, twice, three times.

"You'll be fine," he said, shifting his feet nervously as he heard footsteps approaching the door.

* * *

"What…"

She hurried to the door, wondering why Neal hadn't taken his keys, and why, in the name of Heaven, he was ringing the doorbell that many times.

"Neal, wh-"

Her jaw dropped when she realized what he had in his hands.

"Happy belated birthday, princess."

"Oh my God!" she muttered, taking the dog in her hands and laughing as it started licking her face. "I can't believe this! You got us a dog?"

"Yeah. You like it?"

"You got us a dog! Of course I like it!" she grabbed his head and brought his lips to hers, with one of themost enthusiastic smiles he had ever seen. "What's her name?"

"She doesn't have one yet," he replied, closing the door behind him as she walked into the living room. "I thought you should be the one to choose it."

"Let me look at you."

She raised the dog in her arms, looking at the black spots on its tiny furry ears, and after a minute of consideration, she turned around to look at Neal.

"Biscuit."

"Biscuit?" he asked, tilting his head with a puzzled expression on his face. "Is that… are you sure?"

"Yeah!" she turned to look at the dog again. "I like it. Don't you?"

"You asking me or the dog?"

She felt him wrap his arms around her waist, and her heart was beating so fast she was absolutely sure he would be able to hear it. They had a dog. They were, officially,_ a couple with a dog._

She finally had a little family to call her own.

"Thank you," she whispered, blinking away happy tears.

"You're welcome," he replied, pressing a kiss to her temple and another one to Biscuit's ear with tears in his eyes as well… but not exactly happy ones.

"Oh well, it's been a long day… We should get some sleep," he said, clearing his throat after patting her on the shoulder. "I think we should set something up in the laundry room for now. I got her some food, a blanket and a toy, they said at the shelter that a clock can help her sleep as well… At least until she gets used to her new home."

From that moment on, he let the automatic pilot take over. His eyes would carefully avoid Emma's; he was successfully ignoring the dog as well. He did what he had to do, then brushed his teeth, slipped into his pajamas, got into bed. When Emma joined him, he pretended to pay attention to her words, but listened to none of them, and when the lights went out he forced himself to stay awake after she kissed him goodnight.

And in the hour that followed, he waited for Emma to fall asleep, only to climb out of bed and get dressed again, as silently as he could.

Without much of a second thought, he tiptoed his way back into the living room, fished the letter he had written from inside his backpack, left it on the dining table, and headed to the door, locking it behind him as soon as he stepped outside. He then took a final look at the key in his hand, slipped it under the door and walked away, proud of himself for being totally in charge of his emotions.

Five minutes later, he was throwing up on the neighbor's geraniums, crying his eyes out as he searched his pockets for the keys to the bug.

When he found them, he wiped his mouth and his tears on the sleeve of his coat and walked, as fast as he could, towards the car parked a couple of blocks away, leaving behind the woman he loved, their dog, their plans, Tallahassee, his future; trying to focus on nothing but the fifty-eight dollars he had in his bank account and worry about nothing except how to get to Mexico with such a small amount of money.

It took him more than five attempts to unlock the car's door for him to finally get it open, and he jumped inside, resting his head on the steering wheel to try to calm himself down as he repeated time and again that _he was doing the right thing,_ even when every cell in his body screamed that he would regret that decision for the rest of his life.


	15. Chapter 15: Eleven Years Later

**A/N: Swanfire reunion, eleven years later. ****_Because the future is never what you expect._**** I am sorry for how incredibly sad this turned out to be. **

**Warning: there is a tiny bit of smut, as in Neal giving himself some... relief.**

* * *

**Chapter 15: Eleven Years Later**

He had tried to lose himself. He really had.

He had drunk bottle after bottle of tequila, hidden under sombreros, and spent countless nights looking at the Pyramid of the Sun trying to void his mind, trying to _forget._

It never worked.

And so, he had eventually left Mexico, shaved off a mustache he had grown in behalf of his very insistent neighbors, and taken an airplane to the other side of the world as soon as he managed to scrape up the money to do so.

It had been six years since he first arrived in Thailand.

He still wondered how he had come to the decision of becoming a monk, in the first place. A monk, of all things! Not that it bothered him to wake up before sunrise to clean toilets, empty dustbins, wash blankets and do the gardening: he was used to such kind of service. He was good at it. He had a past as a maid, after all.

No, he wouldn't complain about the bland soups that were all he had to eat most of the times, or about shaving his head. And even though he did miss hearing the voice and the laughter of people, he wouldn't complain about the silence and solitude either.

But if there was something he could never get used to, it was bathroom doors with no locks. That, and having to masturbate while wearing three different robes.

As it was, he had to struggle with the red layers of fabric as he tried to touch himself for a quick release of endorphins in his bloodstream, to calm himself down three minutes before their next meditation session.

_It was happening again._

After six years in that place, he had managed to reach higher ground, to finally get a grip on his dysfunctional emotions. He would successfully clear his mind of any disturbing thoughts, control his physical urges by breathing slowly and humming mantras that had pretty much saved him in the most gruesome nights.

Still, there were days, and today was one of such, in which his heart, and body, would pursue an agenda of their own. There were no chants, or prayers, that would make her go away: he could smell her perfume, feel the heat of her body close to his, and there were times when he would even see her and her beautiful face with those lovely glasses and ponytail he had grown so fond of, and then he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

"Oh my God Emma..." he moaned, breaking his vow of celibacy as he stroked himself, his other hand clenched into a fist and pressed against the wall as he mentally flogged himself for giving in to temptation, again.

_He missed her so much._

"Baelfire?"

_'Damn these doors with no locks!'_ he thought, cursing silently as the door hit him hard in the back and the head of another monk sneaked in from behind it.

"It is time."

"I'm coming," he replied, unaware of the ambiguity in his words until the other man let out a snicker.

He kicked the door closed with his heel as he leaned against it and tried to finish himself off, his breath quickening as he tightened the grip around his shaft, thinking of her lips, her breasts, her gorgeous legs wrapped around his waist as he slid in and out of her moist, tender flesh, always so tight, so... hot.

_Hot._

He bit back a moan when he caught the first spurt of cum in his hand, and then the many others that followed.

* * *

When he joined the other bhikkhus outside five minutes later, he tried to ignore all the curious glances being cast towards him. He felt that all of them knew what he had been up to, including his teacher, whose patience with him had been remarkable since day one.

He let out a sigh as he sat cross-legged next to the older man, fully aware he was doing a crappy job as a monk...It was high time he got his act together if he was really going to give it a try; either that, or maybe he should just leave for once and for all.

Incense was burning on top of a rock, next to a statue, and he kept his eyes on the smoke coming out of it for very long minutes, until his eyes fluttered closed and he let his other senses take charge.

Somewhere outside the temple, children were playing on the street... unaware of the world's troubles, absorbed in their own bliss. Their distant laughter seemed to rattle inside his chest, and so he tuned in his ears to hear what else the universe was offering him: the wind was blowing through the trees, as it had done since the beginning of time... The water fountain and its soothing splashes reminded him that all things that were would continue to be much after he left.

His existence and troubles were so far away.

One day, he would be dust, and none of his past would matter... None of his lost battles, and none of the wars he had won. Only the parts of him which had been selfless, brave and true would remain as a testimony of his existence, only the pieces of him that had transcended him and left a faint hint of hope in the lives of others.

He was rising above his own feelings. There was no pain, or joy. The universe was in him, and for the first time in his life, absolutely everything made sense, everything was in the right place.

Way too soon, the sound of a bell ringing brought him back to his senses.

"I did it," he said, with a smile on his lips when he realized he had finally been able to move on to another level of consciousness.

"Yes you did," his teacher responded, as the other students slowly got to their feet. "That is called insight."

"I feel it was more than that, this time."

"It might as well have been," the older man added as he also stood up. "You have come a long way, Baelfire."

That, he had. Credit where it's due. For someone who could barely enjoy a decent night of sleep without ghosts of his past showing up in the most absurd nightmares, being able to meditate and reach that level of single-mindedness was a remarkable deed.

"Still..." his teacher added, "we need to talk."

Judging by the expression on the man's face, it was pretty obvious he was about to get called out on his constant... _moments of intimacy_ with his own self. He swallowed, feeling his ears were turning a bright red. If only he could bring himself to stop thinking about Emma Swan.

_If only he wanted to._

"I'm sorry, I know I sh-"

"I'm not concerned about your urges," his teacher interrupted, as if sensing his embarrassment. "Eventually, you will be able to control them."

That man was the only person in that temple to whom he had told everything - literally, _everything _about his past, and much to his surprise, there hadn't been a single moment in which the Dragon, as he was known in the village, seemed to doubt his unlikely tale.

"You've been saying that for six years."

"Yes, I have. Certain things cannot be rushed, have patience."

"I bet you didn't need that much time."

"I did not. But your circumstances are different."

"What do you mean?"

Instead of an answer, his question was met with a cryptic look which made his own eye twitch nervously. Given his lifetime of misfortunes, if there was a thing Neal Cassidy, also known as Baelfire, son of the Dark One, had grown to dislike, it was moments of suspense. He could tell from experience that, in his case, they never ended well.

"We need to talk about Emma."

The mere mention if her name made his heart skip a beat. Truth was, being a monk and being in love with a woman didn't go well with each other. He would have to make a choice, and as usual, he could not bring himself to give her up. After all, the memory of her was all he had left. Their moments together, the delusional hope that one day she would find him and forgive him for having left...

"I still... I still think about her. A lot."

"I know that."

"I don't think I will... I don't think this will work," he admitted. "Me, a monk. I don't... I don't think I can."

"That is yet to be seen," his teacher responded, and for a moment he wondered how that man managed to be so serene the whole time. "Walk with me."

He tried not to worry as he left the hall, holding his hands behind his back. The sound of the outside world grew distant as the two of them crossed the bridge over the moat, and his glance shifted to the sculptures of out-reaching arms right below them. That temple was such an exceptional place, with its mosaics of mirrors, sparkling in the sun, and its white towers full of intricate carvings and objects, that he felt he knew very little of its secrets even after six years residing there.

"Emma Swan came to me shortly after you got to this monastery."

Those words made him stop on his track. For a moment, he thought he had heard it wrong, but he knew he hadn't. His teacher had _really _said what he thought he had said.

_"What?"_ he shrieked, blood pounding in his years as he watched the older man continue walking, without the slightest hint of concern.

"She needed help."

"What, why... How, how come you didn't tell me anything?"

"You were not ready."

"She needed help!"

To hell with his vows of renouncement, with inner peace, with insights and acceptance. The swollen vein in his forehead as he roared made it clear that he was not cut out to be a monk, as he had always suspected.

"I was always ready for her! I will always be!"

The older man finally stopped walking, and turned around slowly to look at him, his face as serene as always - which, of course, only made his student angrier.

"My God, what... What did you tell her?"

"I told her to come back when you were ready."

"Oh, great," Neal threw a punch in the air, biting his fist afterwards before his anger got the best out of him. "Great! What the... You mean_, you sent her away?_"

His teacher merely blinked, and his indifference felt like a slap on the face.

"And I spent all this time pining for her, and she had looked for me and you told me nothing?" he yelled at last, fully aware that at least half a dozen other monks in the adjourning garden had heard him.

"You are letting your emotions take over."

"I don't..."

"Clear your mind."

By now, he was sure the look on his eyes was murderous. He _did not want_ to clear his mind. He _did not want _to calm down.

"Baelfire, I have all the time in the world."

Neal closed his eyes, after letting out a desperate sigh. And so it was that he was throwing a tantrum in the hopes of getting in the nerves of a Buddhist monk.

_Talk about a bad strategy._

He forced himself to inhale and exhale a number of times, trying to focus on his breathing although the angry pounding in his ears was incredibly distracting. Slowly, his heart rate went back to normal, and he opened his eyes again.

"You were saying you told her to return when I was ready."

"Yes."

"And?"

"She's here."

So much for a normal heart rate.

_"Here?"_

"Yes."

And then, he heard her voice behind him, and the world stopped.

He was frozen, paralyzed, too scared to turn around and find out she no longer had any love for him in her eyes. He had spent years waiting for that moment and now that it was finally happening, he felt his throat had closed, panic flooding his bloodstream as he realized that after _eleven years_ she might have moved on from him, even though _he_ had never moved on from _her._

He swallowed the lump in his throat as he slowly turned around, his heart beating so fast he felt he was on the verge of a massive coronary.

"Emma."

"Neal."

He let out a relieved smile when her eyes met his: it was still there, that look that made his heart beat faster, the look that made him feel like he was the most special man in the world.

An arm restrained him when he took a step forward, trying to cover the distance that separated them.

"Baelfire... Give her room."

He blinked when the voice of the man by his side brought him back to reality. That was the truth: he no longer had the right to simply reach out and take her in his arms; he had given up that privilege over a decade ago. The fact she had found him didn't mean that she had _forgiven _him, that she wanted him to take that step forward, to reach out.

"Let her decide how far you can go."

He nodded, trying to turn years of want into silent resignation as he looked at her for a very long minute, intent on memorizing every single line of her face.

"I'm glad you're here," he said, keeping his distance and feeling he had lied to a certain extent. There was no reason to be glad. He was in a monastery, while she, most likely, had moved on with her life and was only there to demand an explanation for his sudden disappearance eleven years ago.

"I'm glad to be here."

When she spoke, though, her voice was so quiet and serene that it filled his chest with hope that maybe_, only maybe_, she was not as mad at him as he thought she would be.

"How... how did you find me?" he asked. "Of all places..."

"It was not that difficult."

"I'm sure it took some work."

"Maybe..."

She paused, and he realized it was her turn to study his face.

"You look different."

"Yeah," he replied, letting out a smile as he smoothed his robes. "And older."

"I like your hair like that."

"You mean... you like me _bald_ like this."

"You're not bald."

"Well, I should be," he said, as he ran a hand over his head and felt a velvety layer of hair that hadn't been there the week before. "That means it's about time I shaved my head again."

"You look really good."

"You look good, too."

He swallowed a lump in his throat, a question burning in his lips... one whose answer he was not ready to hear yet.

"Can you meet me tomorrow by the moat?" she asked, taking one step backwards.

"Yes."

"We have to talk."

"Okay."

He watched in silence as she walked away, turning her head towards him one last time before heading to the shrine hall.

"Nine o'clock sharp."

"In the morning?" he asked, before she disappeared behind one of the pillars.

"Yeah."

* * *

As he paced back and forth while waiting for her by the bridge the following morning, he realized that they should have arranged to meet somewhere more private.

He had barely been able to sleep the previous night, images of her filling his mind, a number of scenarios crowding his thoughts, the urge to tell he wanted her back clashing with the guilt of leaving her behind, with the fear that she might no longer be interested in him.

He felt overwhelmed. He didn't want to have that conversation out in the open.

Not to mention that the moat was such a wide reference point. She could literally be half a mile away from where he was.

_Except that she wasn't._

And, as a matter of fact, even if she were, he now realized he would have spotted her anyway.

"I can't believe you're riding The Elephant..." he muttered, as soon as her smiling face came into view.

"I am," she replied, looking particularly proud to have found out the animal's hideout much before Neal even mentioned its existence.

"I wish you were riding me instead..."

For a moment, he doubted those words had really left his lips, but judging by the look on her face, they had. He had really said what was on his mind as he watched her hips sway as the three of them moved along.

"Neal... Come on."

"What? I'm serious."

"You're a monk now."

"A monk who won't stop masturbating thinking of you."

"It will get better," she added, looking away. "Give it time."

"Don't you wanna?"

"Have sex with you?"

"Yeah."

When she shook her head with a half smile, he felt like an idiot. But then, what had he been thinking? What a stupid thing to tell her after all that time away!

"Oh," he offered, raising his eyebrows as he tried to look calm and collected. "Now that went well."

_That was it._ After his disastrous approach, there was no point avoiding the topics they would inevitably have to cover during that conversation.

"You with someone?" he asked, collecting a dried branch from the ground and staring at it as if it were the most interesting thing in the planet in order to avoid her eyes.

"No."

_'Keep it cool, keep it cool...'_ he told himself mentally, trying uselessly not to get his hopes up.

"Have you had lots of girlfriends, after me?"

"No."

It was the truth. After everything he had been through, betting on a new love was not exactly what he had in mind. Not that he had lived a life of virtue and celibacy, far from that - but one night stands was usually as far as he would go.

"I tried to, but it never lasted. You?"

"Nope," she replied, her eyes shifting to his as she smiled. "No girlfriends."

He chuckled, and tried not to let regret and sorrow take that moment of joy away from him. _Eleven years had gone by._ Over of a decade of a life the two of them ended up not sharing.

"I missed you," he said, while still repeating that old mantra in his head: _that he had done the right thing._

"I know. I kinda miss you too."

"I'm sorry I left, Emma... I am," he admitted, avoiding her gaze for a moment as the three of them came to a halt. "I really am."

From the top of the elephant, Emma Swan kept watching him, the sadness in her own eyes matching his.

_Eleven years had gone by,_ and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Ain't you mad at me?"

"No. Not anymore," she replied. "I know you meant well. Now I know."

"Did August tell you?"

"Pinocchio?"

"Yeah."

"No. But I found out."

"How?"

She looked away for a moment, but his eyes remained on her face as she let out a sigh.

"Long story."

"We have time."

"You're not ready."

"Oh, darling... Trust me, I might be."

"Maybe..."

Her voice seemed to falter for a moment, and his heart broke when he noticed her eyes had grown even sadder.

"Tomorrow I'll tell you everything," she said at last, steering the elephant in the opposite direction they had been walking. "I should go now."

"Why don't you... Why don't you stay this time?"

For a moment that seemed to last forever, her eyes locked with his and he felt like he was falling into a bottomless pit.

He was not sure he liked the expression on her face.

"Tomorrow," she repeated, a strange, vacant look in her eyes before she turned her head and went her way.

* * *

"Another sleepless night, I suppose."

The next morning was not as bright as the other days. He kept staring at the sky even after his teacher approached him at the gate to the temple, and saw that clouds were gathering, filling the air with the threat of an impending storm. Or maybe it was something else... something that was clearly wrong, making him uneasy, worried, fearing for the worst.

"Why is she here?" he asked. "How did she find me?"

The older man wrinkled his forehead for an instant, but his expression showed little to no emotion, as usual.

"You should know that by now."

"I..." He had to bite back the urge to scream at the other monk for his cryptic answers. "I'm sorry, I... I don't understand."

"No, you don't. And that is because you are still far too attached to her to see the truth."

"What truth?"

"You are asking the wrong questions."

"Oh come on..."

He breathed into his hands to stop himself from punching the gate, or worse, the man talking to him.

"I think you should see something," said the older man, before turning on his heels and walking towards a tower past the front gardens.

He knew he should follow his teacher. Part of him wanted to. The problem was with the half of him that was always wary of surprises, always pessimistic, always sensing he was about to have the rug pulled from under his feet once again.

The light drizzle that had started to fall didn't make him feel any better.

As if noticing the hesitation of the younger man behind him, the Dragon stopped, and held his hands behind his back.

"You have to let her go."

"I already have. Once," he replied, walking slowly towards the other man. "I'm not gonna do it again."

"This time, it is different."

"Why?"

"She doesn't belong here anymore."

"I know. I know she has another place to be, I will... I will go with her, I will help her. I will help her break the curse."

"It's too late."

He made sure to stop his mind from registering those words, mainly because they were everything he had ever feared: that eleven years ago, he had made the _wrong _decision. That he should have stayed and followed his instincts, that he should have helped her somehow. Now he was being told it was too late and that everything had been in vain, and that was a place he could not afford to be.

"No, it's not."

"You see, shortly before Emma Swan got here, I was visited by another acquaintance of yours."

"August?"

"Yes."

"Was he looking for me?"

"Yes…" the older man answer, raising his eyebrows, "… and _no._ He needed you to know certain things... But he didn't want to be the one to tell you."

"My God, how..." he rubbed his eyes, anger flooding his bloodstream. "Is this temple in the yellow pages or something? Do you publish all the monks profiles somewhere in the Internet?" he snarled. "This was supposed to be a refuge!"

"Emma told him where to find you."

"But how..."

Before he could finish his question, though, the older man opened the door to a cell, and his jaw dropped.

On top of a bed, lay a giant wooden puppet.

"Jesus Christ…" he muttered, feeling all blood draining from his face as he stared at the immobile figure of August W. Booth. "How... How did this happen?"

"He failed his mission."

"Oh Gods… no... What happened?"

He felt his heart was torn between beating as fast as it could, and not beating at all. That could not be happening. The man he had trusted Emma's fate with had failed. _Failed._

The word echoed in his head for endless minutes, and he forced himself to speak again before bile rose to his throat.

"What happened?" he repeated.

"Do you know what day today is?"

"October... I don't know, 23?"

"No. October 27th. Emma's 28th birthday was almost a week ago."

He knew those words were supposed to mean something, but… Either he was unable to get there, or he simply didn't want to.

"But she was not where she was supposed to be to break the curse."

His teacher's voice was followed by the sound of wheels turning, and when he looked at the ground, his jaw dropped once again.

And this time, his heart definitely stopped.

"Is that... Is that _our dog?_" he asked, his voice catching in his throat as he glanced at a dog that had approached him with a canine wheelchair attached to its hips.

He didn't wait for an answer to crouch and scratch the animal behind its ears; he didn't even need to see the name in the medallion hanging from its leash to know it was her.

"Biscuit… What happened to you, girl?"

The dog tried to lick his face as he ran a hand over her back, reaching her hind legs to unfasten the wheels attached to them.

"What happened to her?" he asked, as he picked her up and lowered her onto his lap as he sat on the bed across from August's.

"You can ask Emma when she gets here."

"Does Emma... Does Emma know? About the curse?"

The older man simply nodded, still holding his hands behind his back.

"But now... how will she..." Neal asked, his hand resting on Biscuit's head as he spoke.

"She can't break the curse anymore."

When he turned his head to look at the door, there she was. So beautiful, so… _sad._ His head was spinning. August was gone, Emma was back, their dog was in his lap and nothing made sense. The look in her eyes still haunted him, and all he wanted was a word of comfort, something that would put his mind at ease… There had to be a way out, there had to be an explanation as to why those things were happening all at once.

"Emma, love..." he whispered. "Oh my God, what are we gonna do?"

"Neal?"

"Yes?"

"None of this is your fault."

His chin trembled when his eyes shifted from her face to his teacher's.

"Okay?" she added.

"I don't... I don't understand," he muttered, a shaky hand moving from Biscuit's head to her back. "What is it?"

"I wish I could have shown myself to you earlier," she replied. "But you were not ready."

"Ready for what?"

"Baelfire..."

The Dragon had approached him, and judging by the tone of his voice, the ground beneath his feet was about to shatter once again, as it had done so many times in his life, ready to swallow him up.

"The reason she can't break the curse... is because _she is no longer with us._"

"Oh," he gasped, an instant before bursting into laughter. "What?"

His shoulders shook as he laughed, his eyes shooting up to the ceiling as his mind drew a blank. So that was what it was all about. He was dreaming. _It was all a dream._

When his laughter finally subsided, he lowered his glance to the two faces staring at him, and he realized that if he had been dreaming, then he still hadn't woken up.

"Oh, please, are you fucking high?" he asked his teacher, before looking at Emma. "Emma, come on."

However, neither of them seemed to find the situation amusing, and his mouth went dry when he spoke again.

"So, then the two of us are hallucinating, is that right?" he asked, glaring daggers at the older man. "Because we are both talking to her and I have a fucking dog in my lap. How is that even possible?"

"Biscuit is alive," Emma answered. "She survived."

_Alive._

His eyes filled with tears before he could tell his mind to ignore that word and all the implications that came with it.

"She survived what, what are you talking about?"

When she kneeled in front of him, he regretted having asked that question, in the first place. He did not want to know what she was talking about, he did not want to hear it.

Not if it was what he thought it was.

"One night our apartment was broken into," she began, and he simply shook his head, trying to force out a careless smile. "Biscuit tried to defend me and got shot. The bullet got lodged in her spine…"

"When the hell did that happen?" he asked, telling himself not to worry. They were both with him now, and they were both well.

_They were both alive._

"5 years ago."

"Oh my God…" he whispered, his mind tied up in a knot as he looked at her face. "Thank God you're okay."

"Neal, love... I'm not okay."

Again, his eyes shot up to the ceiling, and he felt his heart was going to burst out of his chest.

They were both well. _They were both alive._

"Neal?"

He didn't have the nerve to look down, not while his whole body seemed to have been caught in a wave of panic. He took a series of very long, very deep breaths to calm himself down, and only then did he shift his gaze to the woman kneeling in front of him.

She was unbuttoning her shirt, and under any other circumstances he would find that very appealing. But by that time, he had already managed to numb himself to such an extent that no pain or pleasure could reach him. Nothing was getting processed by his senses, or by his mind – not even the gunshot staining her chest with streaks of purple and dark red.

"What is that?" he asked, his voice void of emotion.

"It was very fast. It didn't even hurt."

"But Emma..." he replied, frowning as he looked from her face to her injury. "You're... You're hurt."

"Neal..."

Her voice was pleading, and all of a sudden he realized he was holding his breath. None of that was real. He was just confused. It was not happening.

He closed his eyes, and tried to empty his mind before moving the dog on his lap to the bed and standing up.

"Excuse me, I... I need a moment."

He staggered past the door, took a left turn and let his body slide against the wall.

_That was not happening._

"Wake up, wake up, _wake up_," he kept telling himself as he held his head in his hands. "It's just a nightmare, _wake the fuck up._"

He kept his eyes tightly closed, covering his ears with his hands as he waited.

Soon enough, it would be over. He would open his eyes, and find himself lying on a comfortable bed somewhere in Mexico, or in Florida, or in New York.

Not in a temple, not with a dead Emma Swan in the room behind him.

"Please, wake up…" he repeated, as tears streamed down his face.

He took a long, deep breath before opening his eyes again, only to see Emma sitting in front of him, with that same sad look in her eyes.

"Tell me it isn't true."

Her perfume filled his nostrils, and he could actually feel the heat of her body next to him. How could she be gone? _How could she be only a ghost?_ He watched as she raised a hand and waited; waited for him to touch her, or at least, try to.

And then, he knew. He knew that if he raised his hand as well, that his fingers would touch nothing.

_He couldn't bring himself to do it._

"Oh Gods Emma, no..."

"Neal, this is not the end, you know it, don't you?"

_No, he didn't._ He didn't know anything anymore. He sobbed into his hands, his eyes once again closed as she spoke.

"You are still alive..." she continued. "And… I thought you should know that I... I saw them."

He tried to breathe as he raised his eyes to her face, his chest still heaving up and down.

"My parents. I went to the place where they are."

Of course. Now she could go anywhere, be anywhere she wanted. Now he understood how she had found him as well.

"But they couldn't see me."

He closed his eyes again, tasting salt on his lips as she spoke. That was not how it was supposed to happen. If anything, she should at least have been able to reunite with her family, the only thing he knew she wanted with her whole heart.

"I want to ask you a favor."

"What?" he asked, his voice hoarse and low as he tried to focus on her, to keep listening to her even though all his mind wanted was to shut itself to everything that was happening around him.

"Please... find them," she whispered, and he followed her gaze as it shifted to his teacher, who nodded and turned on his heels, only to reappear a minute later with a box on his hands. "Tell them I understand what they did."

He took the box in his hands, and opened its lid to look at its contents.

"Oh, Emma…"

The woolen blanket with her name on it felt soft and warm under his touch. The only thing that had ever reminded her of a home she once had, of parents she never met. Parents that now, would never hug her, would never see what a fine woman she had turned into despite all the trouble and heartache…

"They won't remember they are your parents," he said, staring at the blanket without really seeing it. "The curse..."

"I know," she interrupted. "But maybe one day they will."

When he raised his eyes to hers again, he wished he could hug her, at least one last time. She looked so, _so_ sad, and there was literally nothing he could do.

"Maybe there is another way... to break it," she added. "And I want them to know... that I am not angry."

Slowly, he felt all the pain melting away… maybe it was his mind trying to numb his senses again, but the truth was that for the first time he was not scared of life pulling the rug from under his feet.

There was nothing, and no one, left to be taken away from him.

"Can you do that for me?" she asked, and he simply nodded in response.

"You were here before, weren't you?" he asked, his eyes slowly going dry as he breathed her scent in, her presence soothing his tormented soul in a way it had never done before.

"Yes," she replied, a small smile curling her lips. "Many times."

"I felt you."

"Of course you did."

He wanted her to stay, forever. Even if he could never touch her again, at least he could see her, talk to her, _feel her._ But he knew better.

_He knew she had come to say goodbye._

"Close your eyes," she whispered.

_'The future is never what you expect,'_ he thought, as he closed his eyes. There was no way he would have known, eleven years before, that this was how things would turn out. That he would be the one heading to the place where her family was, with a curse keeping all of a town, including his father, locked in an existence without memories.

"I love you," he heard her say, an instant before he felt the warmth of her lips on his.

"I love you too."

When he opened his eyes, she was no longer there.

Yet he knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that _she had listened_.


	16. Chapter 16: Rolling the Dice

**A/N: Hopefully, this chapter will make you all feel much better than the last one! There is a little porn at the end (brief but hot), so read at your own risk! Another warning: reference to child abuse (nothing too detailed but I don't want to trigger anyone).**

**Only one more chapter to go, folks – thank you all for following, reading and reviewing! A spoiler for our finale: we haven't seen the last of August yet!**

* * *

**Chapter 16: Rolling the Dice**

He woke up with a start.

His forehead was throbbing - probably from all the time it had been resting on the steering wheel.

He blinked once, and then twice, trying to make sense of his whereabouts; for some reason, he thought of mariachis... and his hand immediately rose to an inexistent mustache. A Buddhist temple, something about not having hair - and again, his fingers searched for confirmation of what his mind was showing him.

He rubbed his eyes, and tried to remember more of what he had been dreaming of, but none of the images he kept on seeing made sense. They were only fragments thrown into a white canvas; together, he was sure they would make up for an interesting narrative, but he was missing the string of temporality and casualty that would sew the pieces together.

As it was, the only thing he could be sure of was that it had not been a pleasant dream, given the dull ache on his chest - the same kind he would wake up with after the nightmares that haunted him every other night.

And then, he thought of Emma, and the image of her looking at him, with nothing but sadness on her face, flashed before his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat.

He opened the door in a hurry and stepped outside, the bug suddenly becoming far too small and stifling for him to breathe properly. He let the cool air fill his lugs as he looked up to the sky, and then down to the deserted street ahead of him.

He was still in Tallahassee. He hadn't even left yet, and part of him felt numb already, grieving for a future that would never happen.

That is, unless he _stayed._

"No. No no no no," he muttered, pacing up and down as he intertwined his fingers behind his head. "I can't. _I can't_."

_'Can't you?'_ said a voice inside his head.

"I can't."

_'Are you sure?'_

He stopped, and touched his lips with a frown. Technically, he _could_, but he _should not_. Damn his mind for bringing back that debate - he had already been there, studying each and every scenario, hoping to find a way out, hoping to figure out a way to stay and help her.

He had tried, only hours before, to tell her everything, only to be met with laughter, with disbelief. What had he expected, anyway?

Just when he was about to go back to the bug, his mind drifted to August. That man seemed so confident he could handle the mission he was tasked with. But... for almost twenty years he had been away, he was a complete stranger to Emma... Why would he make a better job than him? He knew he was poorly equipped to turn Emma into a believer - that part was annoyingly clear. But what if August, despite all his qualifications, failed as well?

It seemed that no matter what he chose to do, he would be rolling the dice with Emma's destiny anyway. He would take a risk by staying, and a different one by leaving. The only difference was that, if he chose to stay and things went wrong, he would be the only one to blame.

He slammed the bug's door shut, realizing the sun was beginning to rise.

If only there was a way of knowing... But there wasn't, and all he could hope for was that he wouldn't regret it later.

* * *

At least one of their neighbors seemed genuinely mad for being awaken at that time in the morning. Accidentally, it happened to be the one whose tulips he had thrown up on, so the bearded man staring at him as he punched Emma's doorbell repeatedly had twice as many reasons to be glaring daggers at him.

He raised his eyebrows and faked a smile to acknowledge the man's anger, and then proceeded to punch the doorbell again - aware that this time his neighbor was calling his names.

Biscuit was barking as if there was no tomorrow, and hurried footsteps were approaching, _her_ footsteps – and the thought of her was the only thing in that situation capable of soothing his nerves.

"Neal, what the fuck?" said Emma, as soon as she opened the door to let him in.

He spent some time looking at her disgruntled face, her hair in a mess after having jumped from the bed. She was still wearing her pajamas, and had no shoes on - he particularly thought she had never looked so gorgeous, though she would probably disagree. Maybe it was the adrenalin pounding through his veins, the fear of almost having left and lost everything, the anxiety for what he was about to do, and say - but never before had he been so relieved to see her.

He didn't even know where to start.

After closing the door behind him, he grabbed her arm and guided her into the room, hunting for words as the dog in the far corner started whimpering, claiming the attention he was obviously unable to give her.

"Where did you go? Did you spend the night out?"

"Yes. In the bug."

"Why?" she asked, crossing her arms as her nostrils flared.

"I just... I-I was not feeling well."

"You're lying to me_, why are you lying to me?_" she yelled, to the misery of their neighbors.

"I am lying to you because you will never believe the truth, Emma!" he yelled back, his heart about to jump from his mouth.

Either she noticed how much he was shaking and decided to cut him some slack, or she simply didn't feel in the mood for an argument that early in the morning, because her voice was much calmer and lower when she spoke again.

"Try me."

His heart was still racing, and he knew that if tried to present his case with his nerves in that state, he would make an even lousier job than the one he had done that far. As he walked to the bar, his eyes fell upon the envelope he had left on the table, still unopened.

"Have a seat," he said, fishing a bottle and two glasses from behind the counter.

"Seriously? Scotch, this early in the morning?"

"Trust me, after I tell you everything, you will need it," he replied, waiting for her to look away so that he could snatch the envelope from the table, and then sit by her side after handing her one of the glasses. "I know I will, at least."

"Can I let Biscuit out, before you begin?"

"Yeah..."

He watched her walk to the corner where the puppy was standing on its two legs, trying to find a way past the little barricade they had built. And then, when Emma crouched to take it in her arms, he had a hard time deciding who looked happier - though the slight frown in the woman's face reminded him it was not all rainbows and roses in paradise. By now, he was sure Emma Swan thought he was mentally instable, and after the conversation they were about to have, he had no reason to believe things would get any better.

"Some time ago, I... I found out that your parents, and my father, they... They come from the same place. They _are_ in the same place."

As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the glass he was holding, trying to avoid her gaze at all costs.

"I don't even know to explain this to you..." he continued, feeling that at each word he was sinking deeper, praying for some sort of miracle that would keep him from drowning. "I was not joking when I told you about magic."

He had finally gathered the courage he needed to look into her eyes, bracing himself for the worse.

"It is real," he said. "And it ruined my life. And I hate it. And I am supposed to guide you through it," now that he had started, he felt he might as well let it all out. "But I don't know how. And if I fail... then you'll never meet your parents. And a lot of people will not meet theirs as well, and it will be my fault."

"Neal, what are you talking about?"

The expression on her face was a mixture of worry and disbelief, and he had to down his drink before the imminence of another failure slapped him in the face. Now that he had decided to tell her everything, he should stick to it. Too late to turn around and just cover it all up with a joke.

"It is real, Emma. Magic exists," he said, knowing how absurd he sounded, finding very little reason to blame her for thinking he had lost it. "And no... I'm not going to produce a rabbit out of my pocket, if that is what you expect. I myself, I am not magical." he added. "But my father is. He wasn't... but now he is."

He winced when she said nothing in return. That was it. Not only had he failed to explain things again, but now he realized he might have just screwed with any chances Pinocchio had of making her believe where she really came from, and what her destiny was.

"Do you miss him?" she asked.

"What?"

"Your father, do you miss him?"

He let out a mirthless smile, torn between the bitterness of remembering the old man and the surprise of her asking that question, out of all others that had probably crossed her mind.

"He abandoned me, Emma."

"I know he did. My parents abandoned me too…" she replied, looking at the glass she was holding, her scotch still untouched. "But still… I kinda miss them..."

"Oh my God, Emma, my father is not the point!" he snapped, feeling she was going off on a tangent and hating himself for not coming up with any ways to make that conversation more believable. "Emma, it is so different, the circumstances, everything… Your parents… they left you to save you."

"Save me? From what?"

"I-"

"How do you know that?"

"What matters is that your parents love you," he replied, trying to ignore the lump in his throat as he remembered his own family. "And they want you. And that is the difference."

"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me!"

He felt like the worst man to walk on earth when her eyes filled with tears, her voice shaking as she looked at him.

"Emma..." he whispered, taking the glass from her hand and placing it on top of the coffee table along with his. "Emma, I'm so sorry..."

"How do you know all these things?" she asked, as he pulled her into a hug and caressed her hair.

He then realized there was no way he could tell her bits of her story - the pieces of that puzzle didn't make any sense when looked at individually, but if he told her everything he doubted she would make sense of it anyway.

"Emma, you grew up thinking no one cared for you... But the truth is that the people that truly care for you are not here. They're somewhere else, waiting for you... You have to believe."

She pulled back from their embrace, wiping away her tears as she steadied herself.

"Are you telling me that to meet my parents..." she said, her voice low and unusually serious, "I have to believe in _magic?_"

"Pretty much."

His eyes darted nervously from her eyes to her mouth, and he let out a sigh of relief when her lips curled into a smile. When she stood up and walked towards the door, however, his heart once again skipped a beat.

"Get out," she said, avoiding his eyes as she held the door open.

_"Emma..."_

_"Get out!"_

"Bu-"

"I don't know what is wrong with you," she said, her voice filled with resentment and anger as more tears fell from her eyes. "But to joke about my life like that..."

"Emma, do you think I would jo-"

"Neal, just _go_."

He felt he had just been hit by a truck. Although he had imagined that conversation could go horribly wrong, being kicked out of their house was definitely not what he had expected. In silence, he rose to his feet and smoothed his jeans with sweaty hands, casting a final glance towards the dog still trying to get some of his attention.

"I think I left some clothes in the laun-"

"You can get them tomorrow," she interrupted. "Please leave."

And he did, taking more time than usual to remember where he had parked his car, his head still spinning.

* * *

One month had gone by since the day she told him to leave.

Much to her dismay, he hadn't insisted, or forced his way back into her life. Instead, he had simply stopped by the following morning, collected the few items he had left in the apartment, said goodbye to their dog and left, in silence and with the same sad look in his eyes from the day before. And from then on, nothing. No phone calls, no e-mails, no accidental encounters somewhere in Tallahassee.

Not a single apology, not an explanation.

At first, she had thought the whole magical bullshit was a joke. But that day, the seriousness in his eyes, and in his voice, had scared her to no end - for whatever reason, he seemed to believe the absurd things he was telling her. Apparently, he was lost in his own hallucinations, and now she regretted not having been more understanding. Perhaps he did have a mental condition, after all, one that he had kept from her all that time...

But now, it didn't matter. He was gone, and he was not coming back.

"I'm fine," she said, when her supervisor asked her for the millionth time that day why her eyes were red and puffy. "It's just a cold."

"A cold, yeah, right..." the woman had answered, shaking her head. "Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then..."

Emma sniffed, and looked at the children playing outside. It had been a crappy month trying to get by without him, when his smell still lingered in her apartment and in some of her clothes, his figure showing up before her eyes as she located a forgotten belt behind the bed, the keychain she unconsciously clutched in her hand for longer than she should every time she fished her keys from inside her bag...

Still lost in thought, she spotted one of the youngest children in the group lying on her stomach, watching an older girl sleep under a tree. She tilted her head to look at the little girl's hands, squinting in an attempt to identify the object she was holding, but to no avail.

Only when she dragged her feet outside did she finally realize what a lovely, sunny day it was. In fact, she suspected she would be in a much better mood if she had joined the kids earlier, instead of locking herself in the cold, lifeless teacher's room where she had insisted on spending most of her time.

"What are you doing, Lilly?" she asked, as soon as she reached the little girl by the tree.

"Ssshh!" the child responded, raising a finger to her lips as she pointed to the girl sleeping next to them. "I'm lighting a candle for my sister."

"A candle? What for?"

"To keep her nightmares away."

Emma's eyes drifted to the older girl sleeping under the tree, and it didn't take long for her to spot a scar on her arm, and a series of other spots whose origin she feared she knew far too well - she had seen them before, in many of the children at that school.

"Daddy was mean to her and now she has bad dreams," the child whispered, her voice low and sad as she watched her sister sleep. "I don't like it when she cries."

"I'm sorry, Lilly," said Emma, feeling her throat tighten as she gently rubbed the child's back. "Does your father still live with you?"

Relief washed through her when the girl shook her head, and she chose not to delve any deeper into that topic. Sure enough, she and her sister had probably gone through hell already, and it would be better to deal with the authorities instead of forcing them relive their worst memories.

"I read it in the book that the Princess would light a candle to keep the nightmares away," the girl explained, her eyes shifting to the candle she was holding as her little legs moved up and down in the air. "And the Prince could sleep and have good dreams."

"I'm going to get you a match, th-"

"No!"

Emma was about to get on her feet when Lilly pulled her down to whisper something in her ear.

"I can light it with magic!"

"Oh Lilly..."

The look in the girl's eyes was so full of hope she couldn't bring herself to tell her that the match was a better idea.

"Like the Princess," the child added. "Just watch it."

She let out a sad smile as Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, opening one of them to check if whatever spell she was casting had worked, then shut them both again, her knuckles going white as she clutched the candle for dear life.

"I just have to concentrate... really hard!"

She looked from the child to her sister, and thought that maybe, _only maybe_, it would be worth a try. Not that she believed any of those magical shenanigans, but still... It was for a good cause.

A candle... A flame...

Her eyes were still closed when she heard the girl gasp by her side.

"I did it! Look, Auntie Emma, I did it!"

When she opened her eyes, the candle was burning.

"Shit..." she muttered, her gaze lingering on the candle an instant before she realized what she had just said. "I mean... _Great!_"

She felt her stomach had dropped to her feet as she reached for her cell phone on her back pocket. It was probably unwise to leave a child holding a lit candle unattended, but she had to, if only for a minute.

"We need to talk," she whispered, as soon as Neal's voice greeted her on the other side of the line.

* * *

He was doing well. He really was. He was happy they had gotten their chance. He treasured their moments together. Too bad it hadn't lasted. For quite a long time, he had thought it would.

But they really weren't meant to be, and he was okay. He really, _really _was.

All he needed was time: time to forget her, time to put everything behind him. So what if he still woke up looking for her on the bed, hoping to hear her quiet snoring as she slept by his side? So what if he could never go past the whipped cream shelf at the supermarket without remembering her taste? Or go to the beach without remembering her smile, her kindness, her dreams, her eyes as she told him her story?

It was all a matter of time until he forgot Emma Swan. At least, that was what he kept telling himself every time his heart skipped a beat at the memory of her.

He had to congratulate himself for not choking on his tongue when he picked up his cell phone that afternoon, and also for not making a scene at work when she had told him the two of them needed to talk. He shouldn't get his hopes up.

_Too bad he already had._

He tried to distract himself by playing with his keys as he leaned against the bug, waiting for her in front of the White Hare. He checked his hair on the side mirror, mumbled something incoherent at the realization he was sweating profusely, and looked at his cell phone again.

As usual, she was late.

When he finally scanned his whereabouts one more time, he saw her coming out from behind a green bus, and for a moment, everything around him seemed to be in slow motion.

She looked as pretty as always, her glasses tilting awkwardly on her nose, her ponytail swinging from side to side as she walked towards him.

He raised his hand for what he thought was a casual wave, trying to look cool as he reached for his sunglasses to take them off.

"Hi," she said, hands tucked into the pockets of her jean jacket.

"Hi."

"Thanks for coming."

"Anytime."

_One month._ One month apart and that was the best response he could come up with.

"You hungry?"

"Yeah..." he replied, quickly realizing that conversation would be much more difficult than he had thought.

"Let's go inside, then."

He followed her into the tavern, waiting for the moment in which her eyes would finally meet his, but she kept staring at the ground the entire time.

"How about going for the free steak?" she asked, her gaze well above his head as she spoke. "It's been forever since I played darts."

"Sure..."

She nodded with a smile, and soon enough she has scoring a Hat Trick while he continued his worst performance in ages.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, a sly smile curling her lips.

"I guess I'm a little... rusty," he lied, trying to hide his anxiety behind a wink and one of his most charming smiles.

"So..." she said, as they walked to their table. "How's life?"

"Good. I have a new job."

"Really?"

"Yeah. At a nonprofit. That one," he nodded when she raised her eyebrows. "They called me for another interview, even though the first one was... not that good."

"I always knew they would want you."

"Yeah..." he said, trying not to remember the reason why his first interview had been such a disaster. "And I got myself a studio downtown."

"Oh..."

He tried to read into that "Oh", wondering if it meant she was happy for him, or upset that he was not going back to her place.

"Good for you."

_Question answered._

When the waiter brought them the steak she had won at the darts, she politely refused it, claiming she had an upset stomach and would have the soup instead.

"You can have it," she said, pushing the plate in his direction.

"You sure?"

"Yeah... Even though you sucked with your shots."

He chuckled at her remark, and for the first time their eyes met. She was smiling as well, and in the brief moment she held his stare, he was reminded of all the moments they had spent like that, fooling around, tossing jokes as they sat opposite each other at the table.

He forced himself to look away, swallowing a lump in his throat as he poked the steak with the tip of his fork, grabbing his glass and taking a huge gulp from his drink to avoid drowning in memories.

"I wish I could say I believe it, but Neal, I... I don't know if I can."

Her voice was low when she spoke, her eyes avoiding his until the very last minute.

"Maybe you just need some time..."

He wished he could tell her everything: about where he was from, about his father, about the curse she was supposed to break. But he feared it would be too much, that she would take to the whole idea even more poorly than she had the day he had told her about her parents. His gaze then shifted to the stage ahead of them, and he tilted his head.

"Have you ever used a sword?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"Well, you took up archery. And you said you liked medieval stuff, so I thought you might have given it a try?"

"Not really, no..."

"Excuse me for a minute, will you?"

He could feel her eyes on his neck as he approached one of the waiters, who led him to a distant corner of the dining lounge.

The look on her face when he returned to the table with two swords was one of the funniest she had ever given him.

"What the hell?"

"Emma Swan, I challenge you to a duel."

The whole lounge erupted in a roaring wave as heads turned to look at them, chairs being moved to the side as people stood up to approach the stage.

"Neal, don't be ridiculous," she muttered, going pale at the prospect of going up a stage to engage in the first duel of her life. "I don't know how to swordfight."

"Well, there is a first time for everything, right?"

He had already climbed on the stage when she opened her mouth to reply, and was now glaring at him as she rose to her feet.

"I hate you," she hissed.

"No, you _do not_."

It was a risky move, but desperate times called for desperate measures. It could work just as much as it could blow up in his face - either way, it was not as if he had anything to lose at that point.

She tripped on her feet on her way up, holding the sword in such a way he couldn't help but fear the whole scene would be laughable.

"Come on, Emma," he said, moving towards her as he swung his sword over his head. "Show me what you got!"

He lunged forward and threw a blow that made her stumble backwards, the sword nearly slipping from her fingers as she tried to keep her balance.

"Neal!"

"What?" he replied, getting ready to strike again. "I thought you could look after yourself?"

"I can look after myself, you idiot!" she spluttered, her ears going red as she dodged his blows.

"I guess I gave you too much credit..." he teased, as his blade once again hit hers. "You're just a sweet, harmless, girly damsel in distress."

He saw her eyes gleam from behind her glasses, a strand of hair falling on her nose as she panted. He looked down at her fingers as they wrapped around the hilt of her sword, her elbows bending in such a way that made him smile in triumph.

It took her less than five seconds to attack him with a series of perfectly timed strikes, sending his blade flying into the air and pointing her sword to his neck.

The crowd around them cheered, and she blinked, as if waking up from a trance.

"How... how the hell did I do that?" she asked, letting her sword slide to the ground as her mouth hung open.

"Your father is a great swordsman," he replied, trying to catch his breath. "And your mother is a great archer. I guess you got the best of both worlds."

He smiled despite the confusion written across her face, but his joy was quickly replaced by worry when her eyes fluttered closed and she passed out in his arms.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, she realized she was clearly not in the White Hare anymore.

She was, as the fluffly pillow under her head and the blanket over her legs confirmed, in a bed.

But not _her_ bed.

She rubbed her eyes and frowned at the navy blue covers, her gaze searching the room she was in until she spotted a blurry figure sitting on a chair.

"Hey. How do you feel?"

"Okay, I guess..." she muttered, feeling slightly nauseated as she forced herself to a sitting position. "Where are my glasses?"

"Here."

"What happened?" she asked, putting on the glasses as he offered her a glass of water.

"You passed out," she saw him answer, leaning closer to her as he spoke. "Right before they brought the check. How very indelicate of you, really..."

She couldn't help but chuckle at his words.

"Well, you have a job now..." she said, pulling her knees closer to her chest. "I'm sure it wasn't that much trouble..."

"Are you kidding me? I haven't even gotten my first pay check yet!" he exclaimed. "And rent is due next Monday... I'm even considering working as a maid on the side, for the extra income."

"I can pay you in advance..."

"Are you hiring?"

"I might have to... Place has been a mess for a month or so."

She watched him as he chuckled, letting his head fall before raising his eyes to her face again.

"You got yourself a nice place..."

"You think?" he asked, gently nudging her as he got under the covers to sit by her side.

"Yeah... It's exactly what I would expect from you..." she said, smiling as her eyes scanned the small studio. "Spotless... Organized... Stylish."

"I guess I learnt a lot from my last job..."

He tilted his head to look at her, and she felt a pang in her heart. Happy as she was for him having found a nice place to live in, truth was it hurt to think they could be together, under the same roof, hadn't it been for her.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. "You look pale. Maybe we should see a doctor?"

"No, I'm fine…" she replied, trying to look more cheerful. "It must be my blood pressure."

She bit her lip as he looked at her, finally gathering the courage to say what she had been meaning to tell him since she saw him leaning against the bug earlier that afternoon.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you that day," she whispered, lowering her chin onto her knees.

"Nah, that's okay..." she felt his eyes on her, although she still couldn't bring herself to look in his eyes. "I guess I would have done the same if I were on your shoes."

"No, you wouldn't..."

"Why not, Emma? I mean, some random dude starts telling you all these crazy things about magic..."

"You are not some random dude."

"Still... I know I must have sounded crazy. There's nothing you should blame yourself for, really."

She felt him give her leg a little squeeze, and she took that chance to hold his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers as she looked into his eyes.

"I missed you."

And then, he let his body fall onto the mattress, covering his eyes with his forearm.

"Oh thank God..." he said, his shoulders shaking as he laughed. "If you took any longer, I think I'd shit a brick!"

"What?"

"Honest, Emma! You scared me with all the small talk!"

"'Shit a brick?' Did I hear it right? Did you just say, 'shit a brick'?"

She was torn between laughing and hitting him on the face with a pillow, so just in case, she did both.

"Is that your romantic response to my 'I missed you'?"

He tugged at her shirt and she landed on top of him, and he kept on laughing when her hair fell on his face, covering his eyes. Their laughter slowly subsided as the realization that they were together again on a bed finally settled in, and she felt her mouth going very dry as his hands went up her back.

She closed her eyes and let the smell of his skin fill her nostrils as his fingers reached for her face, locking his hand between her cheek and her shoulder to revel in his touch. He was breathing deeply, his chest heaving up and down against hers, his other hand sliding under her shirt to grab her waist.

When she opened her eyes to look at him, his lips were parted, and his eyes were burning with the same desire jolting through her veins.

"I missed you too," he said, his hoarse voice making her sex tingle.

"Now that's better," she whispered in return, before lowering her mouth to his, her tongue covering his in wet, long licks as he moaned into her mouth, grabbing a handful of her hair while his fingers dug into her hip.

She broke the kiss to take a deep breath as he rolled her on her back, pressing kisses over her neck as he helped her out of her clothes. A smile curled her lips when her eyes met his, and he once again caught her mouth in his as she took off her jeans and her panties in one swift movement, gentleness giving way to urgency, all foreplay forgotten as she also reached for the fly of his jeans to give his cock a gentle squeeze.

He pulled away to knee on the bed and get rid of his T-shirt, his belt and jeans following suit as she pulled down his boxers to release his erection. After another fiery, wet kiss, he lowered her back onto the bed and spread her legs, guiding his cock into her wet hole in one long, smooth stroke.

She arched her back as he filled her, her hands grabbing his butt to take him even deeper into her. His thrusts were strong and fast, the weight of his body over hers forcing loud moans out of her throat.

"Yeah Neal, fuck... Oh God I love your cock..."

She saw him bite his lip and smirk as he stilled himself inside her, giving her the chance to work her muscles on him, making him squeeze his eyes shut as he moaned.

"Fuck baby... You're so tight..."

Her eyes were closed when she felt him pull out and slide towards the edge of the bed, and before she had time to steal a glance at him, his mouth was covering her sex, his tongue rubbing her inner lips so fiercely she involuntarily bucked her hips onto his face, until he finally caught her clit in his mouth and sucked on it so fast and hard she only had time to scream as pleasure swept across her body.

"God I missed your taste," he panted, licking his lips as he lay on his back, motioning for her to move over. Again, his penis slid easily into her as she lowered her hips onto his, and she kept bouncing on his lap while he caressed her breasts, gently playing with her nipples.

The world around them had disappeared, just like it always did every time they made love. She had missed him indeed, in more than one way - feeling him inside her, hearing him call out her name as he came... those were certainly some of the things at the very top of that list.

His muscles were clenching and releasing as he reached his peak, and the elated expression on his face as he spilled his seed inside her triggered another orgasm that made her whole body shake on top of his.

When the two of them were able to breathe again, they laughed for a long minute, his hands going up and down her sides as she kissed his lips.

"Does that mean you want me back?" he asked, as she slowly disengaged from him to lie by his side.

"You bet it does."

She studied his face for a moment, reveling in the sensations coursing through her body as he caressed her hair.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked.

"Today, I... I think I did it."

"What?"

"Magic."

"How?"

"I think I lit up a candle just by thinking of it," now that she had said it, the whole thing sounded ridiculous, and she realized she would be very little inclined to believe it if it weren't for the fact she had seen it with her own two eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It means... what it means. That you can do magic."

"You don't look very happy."

"I spent an entire lifetime trying to run from magic, Emma," he said, after letting out a sigh. "I just... I never thought it would find me again."

She watched his face as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying magic is bad, or that you should be afraid of it," he was quick to add, turning to look at her face. "But I've seen what happens when people get addicted to it, and I don't want that to happen to you."

She still felt awkward talking about magic, even if she had been given at least two signs that there was something strange going on. And although she still had a hard time believing it was _really _real, she knew for sure that _they_ were, she and the man lying by her side. _She believed in them._

"Thank you," she whispered, pressing her forehead against his, before their eyes fluttered closed and the two of them fell asleep.


End file.
